Jindal’s comments didn’t seem directly targeted at science, but the phrase stuck in my head. And it seems very apropos to the current political debates in the U.S. about climate change, particularly in context of the emerging candidates for U.S. President.

And before you get irritated with me, don’t assume that I am going to declare that Republicans are the ‘stupid party.’

Ted Cruz

The trigger for this post is a statement by Ted Cruz, who has just entered the race as the first declared candidate for President. Cruz’s bio can be found on the Wikipedia. Here is what I knew about Cruz until about a week ago: he aligns with the Tea Party wing of the Republicans, and has somewhat of a pit bull personality.

“I think debates on these issues should be driven by the science and the data and the evidence. Global warming alarmists don’t like to confront the actual evidence because it does not support their apocalyptic theories.

“Specifically, satellite data demonstrate there has been no warming over the past 17 years. That’s despite the fact that the computer models relied upon for this theory showed there would be significant warming, and yet the actual data don’t back up those flawed computer models. So what did the alarmists do? Rather than look to science to understand what’s happening, they simply modified the theory.

“Now you don’t hear them talking about global warming, you hear them talking merely about climate change. The reason for that alteration is because the data demonstrate the Earth is not warming. And I would note whenever anyone makes that point, you immediately get vilified as a quote-unquote ‘denier’ without anyone actually refuting the facts.

“And the language of denial is revealing because one usually hears of deniers in the religious context, dealing with heretics. And much of the global warming hysteria is pushed forth as a religious truth that no facts can dare contravene.

“It is altogether worrisome when you have scientists treating matters — denouncing those pointing to the actual facts and data as deniers. And indeed I would point out that was the exact same conduct the Flat Earth people demonstrated toward Galileo. And the global warming alarmists in their treatment of those looking to the facts and evidence often behave like modern day Flat Earth proponents.”

“What he said is absolutely false,” Brown said — adding that the vast majority of climate scientists believe that climate change is man-made. He said that climate change had contributed to both California’s drought and record snowfalls in parts of the Northeast.“So, it’s climate disruption of many different kinds,” Brown added. “And that man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of scientific data. It’s shocking and I think that man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office.”

Cruz does have a point: There’s been little global temperature change since 1998, and the temperatures measured are lower than what many computer models had predicted.

However, focusing on that period essentially means cherry-picking a timeframe that starts at an extremely warm year and ignores that the first decade of the 21st century — even as it’s been stable — has been the warmest on record. While scientists don’t deny that there’s been a recent “pause” in warming, they expect it to be a temporary trend. Not only is one anomalous period not enough to undercut longer-term projections, but other types of measurements do show evidence of continued global warming over the past two decades, including rising ocean temperatures and shrinking sea ice.

Cruz’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

How do you flat out admit something is true and then give someone a “Mostly False” on their statement? Agenda, much?

Cruz’s response is also noted in the PolitiFact article:

Cruz Spokesman Phil Novack said the senator was not intending to cast doubt on climate change science. He said Cruz recently voted to affirm that climate change is real (though the statement voted on did not attribute those changes to human activity, a key point for climate-change activists who say changes to human activity will be required to keep the environmental impact from worsening).

Rather, Novack said, Cruz was trying to emphasize the fact that “the computer models that climate scientists rely on predicted the Earth should be significantly warmer than it is now” based on satellite measurements. What Cruz is casting doubt on is the idea that we should make major policy decisions affecting the livelihoods of millions of people in the name of theoretical conclusions that in fact cannot currently be drawn from science or data,” he added.

Democrats

While we’re on the subject of ‘stupid’, in case you missed this in the Week in Review.

Despite the overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and man-made, these sixteen members of Congress prefer to live in a fantasy world, refusing to accept the basic facts. You can learn more about their denial here. Help us pick the worst of the worst. Vote now!

97% OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AGREEthat climate change is real and man-made, and affecting communities in every part of the country. Yet too many of our elected officials deny the science of climate change. Along with their polluter allies, they are blocking progress in the fight against climate change. Find the deniers near you—and call them out today.

While I can pick some nits of each of these in terms of the science, neither document is irrational. They reflect differences in interpretation of scientific evidence, differences in the weight they apply to past observations versus futures simulated by climate models, different assessments of risk, different policy preferences, different values, etc. In other words, these two documents reflect political differences among the two parties, although there is spectrum of perspectives within each party.

I find nothing at all wrong with Ted Cruz’s statements about climate change that I have cited above. In fact, I think they reflect some actual nuance of understanding of the climate change issue.

I REALLY object to President Obama’s ‘denier’ hunt, and insistence on the 97% scientific consensus in support of his policies. The extreme scientization of the political debate by President Obama is absolutely pernicious to academic freedom and and is hampering scientific progress in understanding this complex problem.

It remains to be seen how the Republican candidates will position themselves regarding the climate change debate. So far, the declared Republican candidates (Cruz) are NOT winning the ‘stupid party’ contest on the issue of climate science.

JC message to Presidential candidates: If you would like a primer on the complexity of the climate change issue, see my recent presentations:

State of the Climate Debate – presentation at the National Press Club [link]

Cool It is based upon the book of the same name and lectures by Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Award-winning filmmaker Ondi Timoner travels the world with Lomborg exploring the real facts and true science of global warming and its impact. Lomborg is the founder and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a globally respected think tank that brings together the worldâs leading economists to prioritize major global problems â among them malaria, the lack of potable water and HIV/AIDS â based upon a cost/benefit analysis of available solutions. Amidst the strong and polarized opinions within the global warming debate, Cool It follows Lomborg on his mission to bring the smartest solutions to climate change, environmental pollution, and other major problems in the world.

Once upon a time, well early ’09, I had the exquisite pleasure of showing Ryan Maue’s graph of Accumulated Cyclone Energy to a literary group discussing Chris Mooney’s ‘Storm World’. The session was moderated by a cloud modeler. It’s hard to top that one.

Given that ACE graph, I’ve directly asked Chris Mooney when he is going to write ‘Calm World’. Given the Democrats’ faith in catastrophic human caused climate disasters, I’ve directly asked him when he is going to write ‘The Democrats’ War on Science’.

Several times, but no answer. I do remember him deleting a whole post and comment thread on his blog once upon another time, but it was a vicious thread with much personal destruction.
================

Thanks. It would indeed be unfortunate if the Democratic candidates do not pay attention. I think it would be an immense improvement if they (I’m thinking especially of Obama and Kerry) stopped treating climate change as the #1 problem of the country, or of the world.

You cant get through to Obama because he’s appointed catastrophists ( such as life long anti-nuke activist and protester and renewable energy advocate, John Holdren) to be his senior energy policy adviser).

Given Obama has surrounded himself with people like that, what chance is there of him getting rational and objective policy advice? Answer: next to none.

Justin, I have known politicians who were genuinely concerned with the well-being of their fellow-countryman and beyond, including leaders of the UK and Australia. But I think that they are increasingly rare, the parties seem to increasingly depend on political apparatchiks rather than those with a broad experience and connection to the community.

Sometimes people vote for a presidential candidate because the other guy is worse. We need a constitutional amendment to allow us to vote for “none of the above”. Take me, I have no party loyalty, I hate them all. I vote for the one who I think is going to do the least damage.

So when I saw the guys running against Obama I held my nose and voted for the man. I think I was ok voting for Obama the first time, but I blew it the second time. But I really dislike today’s republicans, that clapping seal act with Netanyahu was a real disgrace. And that’s it for politics.

Did you read the statements on science policy by Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 US Presidential Election campaign? Obama’s was just political spin. Romney’s was considered, realistic, rational, and genuinely progressive (i.e. good for USA and the world):

For instance, I support robust government funding for research on efficient, low-emissions technologies that will maintain American leadership in emerging industries. And I believe the federal government must significantly streamline the regulatory framework for the deployment of new energy technologies, including a new wave of investment in nuclear power. These steps will strengthen American industry, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and produce the economically-attractive technologies that developing nations must have access to if they are to achieve the reductions in their own emissions that will be necessary to address what is a global issue.

Being right on climate change wouldn’t really help Republicans. Being wrong on climate change wouldn’t really hurt Democrats.

As noted throughout this thread, a political stance on this is bound to incorporate errors and misjudgements. But the calculus must be oriented towards consequences.

Governor Brown of California is a Democrat trying to hype an issue specific to California.

Governor Schwarzenegger of California was a Republican reacting (IMO) to many of his activist (and Democratic) friends in Hollywood.

President Obama (again, in my opinion) has his environmental news carefully packaged for him. I continue to support him even though I think he is mistaken on both the issue and its electoral impact.

Similarly, I know of no Republican who abandoned John McCain because of his call for Cap and Trade.

I cannot conceive of an election where I would vote for Mr.Cruz for President. Not even if he came out and endorsed the Lukewarmer position by name. Nor can I imagine any Republican deciding to vote for Hillary Clinton if she espoused a skeptical view and promised to appoint Anthony Watts as environmental consultant to the White House.

The political struggle on climate change is just differing degrees of wrong and both sides are entitled to say ‘The fools in town are on our side.’

Tom, I don’t think Obama is doing this for electoral impact. He would consider it more a legacy issue. It is long-term planning beyond his term as good Presidents should do, and they should not be bound by election cycles and what gets votes.

“Similarly, I know of no Republican who abandoned John McCain because of his call for Cap and Trade.”

This Republican didn’t abandon McCain because of his stance on cap and trade, or immigration amnesty, or the constant growth of government, or his visceral hatred of those more genuinely conservative them him. I held my nose and voted for him. I even voted for the ‘conservative’ healthcare central planner Mitt Romney.

But it is fast approaching the point where conservatives like myself will be abandoning the entire Republican Party if they continue to follow their progressive lite ‘principles’, rather than fulfill their (false) promises to their constituents. You can only compromise on principles so far.

Which will be good news for your side, for a few years. Until a genuine conservative party starts to articulate, and actually try to enact, an actual conservative response to progressivism. If enough conservatives leave the GOP, it will go the way of the Whigs,

Justin, I think Netanyahu is wrong, but I’m not Israeli. My beef is with the spineless and/or brain dead Senators and Congressmen who showed up to applaud a guy who was challenging the US president and trying to undermine US foreign policy. I suppose it hasn’t sunk that Netanyahu behaved like a boor, and that U.S. politicians have no sense of honor, no respect for their own country, and essentially have no brains.

Peter, I’m more focused on foreign and economic policy rather than the climate issue, which I rank down the line. To me the climate change debate is interesting because the science is fascinating, I also know we are running out of oil, which means efforts to reduce emissions dovetail with my perception that we need to become much more efficient and find replacements before things go to hell.

I’m also concerned by the flood of ideas being floated by watermelons whose real focus is making me embrace life in their post modern commnist gulag. One thing I can’t stand is people using the climate issue to advocate politics I find abhorrent. I already lived twice through that nightmare and I’m not about to fall in their claws for a third time.

Peter, I’m more focused on foreign and economic policy rather than the climate issue, which I rank down the line.

Thanks for making that clear. So am I, I presume you’d support these policies then:

1. You’d be doing all you can to make sure everyone reaslises how much George Bush and Dick Cheyney did for the USA and the world by remopving gtyhe impediments to fracking. This has gioven US and the world an enormous economic boost. It’s giving US manufacturing and industry a new lease of life. It’s improved US energy security and freed up (to some extent) foreign oil reserves for others countries (especially the poorest). All fantastic. Bush did more for US and the world than any other US President for a long time.

2. You’d be strongly opposed to the mess Obama has made – set back world peace: Told Puttin he’s free to do what ever he likes; told Iran to go ahead and build its nuke bombs but delay until the next US president is in power; gave China to proceed to dominate Asia, USA is not interested; pissed off all US’s allies: UK, Germany, Israel, Australia.

3. You’d be really annoyed with Obama’s incompetence and climate cultist beliefs: strangling the electricity industry in the US with huge power price inflation for decades.

4. You’d support giving approval to the Keystone Pipeline to imprvoe US’s energy security and Canada’s economic strength as a near neighbour sharing the same continent

5. You’d be really annoyed with the stupidity of advocating and funding renewable energy projects.

6. You’d recognise the incompetence of the President surrounding himself with like minded zealots – like John Holdren the life long anti nuke and pro renewables zealot.

Peter, it’s not that simple. I think Bush Junior was a fool. Cheney was nuts, Condi Rice was incompetent, and so on. Like I wrote, I dislike all of them, they are mere reflections of a pretty incompetent ruling elite. They remind me of Byzantium around 630 CE. Iraq 2003 may be remembered as the US version of Yarmuk. And if you think the U.S. won read “Why we Lost” by General Bolger.

Peter, it’s not that simple. I think Bush Junior was a fool. Cheney was nuts, Condi Rice was incompetent, and so on.

So, you hold your personal beliefs and feelings about them are more important than evaluating on their enormous achievements. Did you camp with Stephen Lewendowsi and John Cook.

Your right that it’s much more complicated than just pointing out some examples of their important achievements and the total incompetence of Obama in almost every field of endeavor.

I omitted to mention another of Obama’s staggering stuff ups. He’s been influencing the World bank and other funding agencies to stop giving assistance to poor countries to build coal fired power stations. He puts his own ideological beliefs about climate change ahead of the needs of the poorest people on the planet. What an absolute disaster he’s been.

China Bank will help and he’s forced countries like UK, NZ, Australia and many other countries to move to support China Bank because’s he’s been such a total disaster with his international policies.

Peter, it’s not that simple. I think Bush Junior was a fool. Cheney was nuts, Condi Rice was incompetent, and so on.

“I think”. Yep, you think they’re fools. That must be all you need to know. Demonstrates how, for the Left, supporting the cult’s beliefs is all that matters.

I’m surprised by your continued support for the President. It must be based on a belief in Foreign Affairs being of lessor importance, because in that area our President has demonstrated nothing but incompetence. I don’t think there is a single foreigh head of state who respects him.

Of course his lack of competence is not surprising. I never did understand how people could castigate McCain for selecting Palin as his running mate due to her lack of experience, yet say nothing about Obama’s complete lack of experience in almost every field imaginable.

I think he missed his true calling – a tv news anchor. Looks good and can read and speak well from a telepromptor.

Perhaps Bush, Cheney, Rice etc.had a recollection of the history and tradition of the Muslim Conquest. Byzantium fell around 1453. The battle of Tours (Poitiers, FR) 732 AD stopped the invasion of Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests

The “Hadith” is back in play.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith “Hadith” is not the Quran. It was written about 100 years later. “The hadith was used in forming the basis of ‘Shariah’ law.” … “reports of the teachings, deeds and sayings of the Islamic prophet…”

Oh but stupid in good way. As in, Gruber Americans are stupid:
–Gruber apologizes to Congress for calling Americans stupid–
WASHINGTON — “MIT professor Jonathan Gruber repeatedly told House lawmakers Tuesday he was sorry for what he called “thoughtless” and “insulting” comments — including one last year when he said that Obamacare was written to hide taxes from voters who weren’t smart enough to grasp the details.”http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gruber-apologizes-to-congress-for-obamacare-comments/

Or because Dems were able to pass Obamacare they proved they were representing the realm of stupid.
Or Dem represent minorities and stupid is minority which can be argued that needs to have it represented in government.
So Dems represent the stupid- making younger voters pay for health insurance they do not want. That’s definitional, in terms of stupid.
As compared to Romney saying to “insiders” regarding the 47%- or basically saying 47% were stupid- or low information voters. Which example
of politician being stupid. Because obviously media will take that sound bite and run with it.

And far higher percent of voters than 47% are low information voters. Or mass media with sound bite news has contributed to having more low information voters then there with be absent any kind of media.Because the news media creates the illusion that one is actually gaining information. So idiots imagine they could know all that’s needed for them to know. Without the sound bite news, it’s vaguely possible people might make some effort or least not waste their time listening to blather intended to deceive.

Peter, as to your point about Bush and Cheney removing the impediments on Fracking. Fracking has been standard practice since the 1950’s. What impediments that existed were set by state commissions and were, in most states, reasonable. Bush’s own Department of the Interior suggested some changes to public land regulations which he ruled against. To suggest that the Shale Boom was somehow a function of their administration is probably less supportable than crediting the Obama administration. However, this has happened primarily on private not public lands. All this aside, the Feds has done a lot to help develop this technology. http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/shale_gas_fracking_history_and

To credit Obama with the expansion of fracking and not credit Bush and Cheney would be an example of stupid. Both Bush and Cheney had a background in the oil industry. They understood waht the industry needed to unleash the enormous capabilities to innovate and progress. They understood what the industrry needed – definitely not subsidies or more regulations. They needed freeing up of particular constraints. Bush and Cheyney unsderstood what was relevant andf important. In all these things you have to give and take to satisfy many different special interest groups – especially the loony Left and the eco-warriors. They whAt was important to achieve and focused on that and gave ground on many thigs that were not important for making genuine progress. They succeeded mightily! Give credit.

Obama on the other hand has been blockig progress on everything. He’s done enormous damage to the USA and the world. He’s definitely the worst – the stupidest – US president in my lifetime. What a walking disaster!

BTW, Thank you to Richard Tol for pointing out how gullible Obama and his team of advisers are by believing the 97% of climate scientists … nonsense. Another example of his stupidity

Perhaps they (Bush & company) had a recollection of history and the Muslim Conquest. Byzantium fell around 1453. The battle of Tours (Poitiers, FR) 732 AD stopped the invasion of Europe. Mr. Obama remembers the Crusade, but not the preceding Conquest.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests

Hadith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith
It is not the Quran. Hadith was written about 100 years later. “The hadith was used in forming the basis of ‘Shariah’ law.” … “reports of the teachings, deeds and sayings of the Islamic prophet…”

I say a pox on both parties on this and other issues. And who is to blame? The liberal arts professors who in the late 1970;s and early 1980’s watered down science requirements to include a term of “science and society” which could be taught by anyone in the departments pf humanities, social sciences, or sciences. The students that completed that requirement are now running the country from the White House to congress to state houses.

“…liberal arts professors in the late seventies…” Actually, that’s temporal parochialism. See, “two cultures,” c.p. Snow in 1959. But the scientific ignorance on the part of most college grads is a really essential point.

Usually, when I see the words “climate change” I disregard all that follows. The words, as used in this article and in the mainstream jargon of climate science have been bent out of normal recognition. We are going to “fight climate change” means we are going to stop it from changing? Climate stasis? Expert climate scientists claim they can control the climate and keep it from changing. Really?
If you dare to question orthodoxy you are a “climate change denier?” Now do you deny the climate is changing? No, you deny that man has sinned against the earth and deny that you must make the proper propitiations to the climate gods.
The use of the word is political speech: it snows, it’s hot, it rains, thunderstorm, tropical cyclone, earthquakes, volcanoes: all “climate change.” It’s cooler than normal today and predicted to be warmer than normal tomorrow: must be climate change.
Anyone who actually thinks Governor Brown is a spokesman for “climate change” rather makes my point that the words are gibberish as used today.

Start out using proper, well defined scientific language and cut the political speech.

When Cruz says “…Rather than look to science to understand what’s happening, they simply modified the theory….”

When a hypothesis does not fit the data, one asks whether one throws it out entirely or modifies it so it is not falsified by the data. In this case, we know that the earth is a very complex system and that “warming” may take many forms, such as latent heat rather than temperature rise, moving heat to different sinks, etc. I am just not sure whether Cruz is saying that scientists who are trying to better understand climate by modifying models are tossed in with the Flat Earth society or if he realizes that there is a fair amount we don’t know and as long as we don’t know it, we should not be throwing such large rocks at each other. We should be testing better models.

Obama’s actions targeting his opponents on climate is rather reminiscent of Joe McCarthy’s witch hunts and I am really disappointed. There are definitely a few GOP politicians who have shot themselves in the foot on this topic, and a lot who as you say, simply do not want to make huge policy decisions effecting large political-economic forces when they do not feel like they have the answers they want. There are a fair number of Dems who think there is no problem that more government control will not solve.

It is, after all, a matter of justifying policy and evaluating risk vs. asking how confident we are of the data with which to set risk and that gets a deep coat of political paint on it. It is a rather difficult problem we are trying to solve, and not helped by the hyperbole.

When science at any level scrambles into bed with big time politics as climate science has done, it is the scientists and their science that begin to look decidedly grubby, dissolute and debauched when it is all over and the professional political caravan has moved on to the next bed for their next political orgasm.

Climate science will be left sitting there looking dejected, rejected and abjectly stupid and degraded as it tries to find it’s pants to hide its embarrassment at being so casually and politically raped by professionals.

Didn’t have much affect at all when that “near unanimous” consensus became a crock – they merely started saying (with a complete straight face, I might add) that the exact oopposite will happen instead…

It will be harder this time, of course, as they have been much more vocal this time around. But my money is on our hearing “we always felt Global Warming would cause Global Cooling, we just thought the plant would take much more heat before it was forced to over-compensate. Now that CO2 induced Cooling has started though, we are 99.9% sure it will mean our doom!”

Willard there was a 97.1% consensus. Me and my Denier pals have reviewed papers, whose partial list I can provide and decided to label them whichever way we felt like, by just reading the abstracts. We have withdrawn the pal reviewed paper, before it was published to avoid everyone the trouble.

But by 1975 it must have been terribly uncomfortable for the CO2 theory adherents after 35 years of no significant warming while watching the level of CO2 climb. I can only imagine what they were praying for each night as they knelt beside their beds. How would the current crop of the committed have coped with their doubts in the 1970s? An interesting question.

It’s the secret ingredient to most epic threads, Danny. Some argue (I don’t) that it’s the ball in ClimateBall. In our case, the use is more mundane: to cover up a claim about a “”near unanimous” consensus” with which we started.

The thread is still young, though. Just about every claims by Cruz underlined in the editorial above are tendentious.

Willard,
Why the shift to back to Cruz (Ah, Climateball? Where the goal posts are ever moving from all sides?)(Oh, and by the way, I’m not a big fan of his). I was left with the impression via your post w/r/t a 2008 (30 years post the “events of the day”) paper that the “coming ice age” was not propagated as valid when via mass media & hollywood (and my admittedly dated memory) it was.
As is being done today via Al Gore, Matt Damon, et al. Frankly there is much we know, and much we don’t (uncertainty?). Yet the portrayal in mass media “back in the day” was doomsday via “the coming ice age”. Just honoring the request to “please continue”. (Was there a “score” in that for me?)

Apparently you missed the parts in the article where they talk about the “almost unanimous” consensus, and stuff like:“Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies.”

So not sure what your papers revisionist history uses to come up with the “climate science community” they determine is worthy of inclusion (is this like how we got the 97% nonsense, where it was actually just a measly 76 scientists total they deemed worthy of answering the question?) but…

BTW, here is a 1974 CIA document you might be interested inhttp://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
…funny how the CIA would say “the worlds leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of detrimental global climatic change… the earths climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (1600-1850) – an era of drought, famine and political unrest in the western world” …but now all of a sudden no one in the past ever said such a thing according to people financially dependent on having people believe their newest theory of what’s going on.

@Jim D

“Some of the warmest years to that date were in the 70’s.”

Apparently you too failed to look at the article.

Had you done so, you would have noticed it included the temperatures for 1880-1970. Please do pay extra close attention to the years 1910, 1941 and 1970 – then go and look at your data… Interesting, isn’t it?

It is clear there had been a down turn from the peak 1940 temperatures. These caused widespread concerns which are present in the science papers of the time.

By the early 1970’s the scare in the scientific world was largely over. However, in those pre internet days the media and some science papers still promulgated the cooling threat. (much as today after some years of a hiatus, the media and some scientists still talk of warming, albeit by utilising ocean heat content as well)

Connoley was therefore looking in the wrong decade for confirmation of the cooling scare. Those of us old enough to remember, know that there was a very considerable fuss. In those pre internet days it wasn’t as great as todays warming scare but it was still very big.

This would be a good topic to put forward to Judith as worthy of a future article.

It is the topic of Judy’s editorial, which has little to do with the global cooling consensus myth. Once the myth is established, the appearance of any connection with the current consensus on AGW becomes illusory.

Nothing prevents you from rope-a-doping to “but alarmism” in the media. I have no commitment regarding this. Better yet, the game opens up and anything goes.

I rather like ClimateBall free-for-alls. Mein Kampf and religion are on the table. GaryM wrote 7% of the comments.

Considering the tendentiousness of Cruz’ bald assertions, this can become epic thread.

Willard,
“Nothing prevents you from rope-a-doping to “but alarmism” in the media. I have no commitment regarding this. Better yet, the game opens up and anything goes.”
Shoot. So no score, eh? Defense of goal then (in part an explaination of why some folks can be “skeptical” based on history)?

Really looking forward to the game being “opened up where anything goes”. That should warm things up a bit! :-)

Sometimes Jim D, I think you like to argue just for the sake of argument. This chart and a multitude say that the period 1940 to the mid 1970s at a minimum were certainly warming at a lesser rate than 1910 to 1940 as seen clearly by the blue line on this HadCrut chart. This is one of the first things I learned 5 years ago and it seems to be conventional wisdom. IPCC has similar charts showing the same thing.

I hope you have used your contrarian streak to your advantage in the Stock Market. It can be a great strategy at times. :)

Sometimes Jim D, I think you like to argue just for the sake of argument. This chart and a multitude say that the period 1940 to the mid 1970s at a minimum were certainly warming at a lesser rate than 1910 to 1940 as seen clearly by the blue line on this HadCrut chart.

If you really want to stump JimD, ask him to explain this unbelievably simple exercise

Now have him square that with the IPCCs claim that “the evidence for warming of the Earth’s climate system is unequivocal, and many of the changes observed since 1950 are unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

…except for, you know, when the same exact pattern happened in the time period directly in front of the 1950-now one in question.

And the real problem for them comes in the fact they claim it was almost exclusively natural variation for the period prior to circa 1950, with that 1950 point being the tipping point because of our CO2 use and this whole thing

I would love, love, love even one of them to address it. I went as far as to personally ask Michael Mann myself – he literately said “the human eye is not a good trend estimator” after seeing that very overlay graph showing the period from 1884-1945 being practically identical to the period of 1946-2007. Apparently the perfect match of pre-CAGW and post-CAGW temps we can all see with our own eyes is all in our head.

So JimD, can you please explain to us all how the “natural fluctuation” of 1884-1945 matches perfectly with the “Unequivocally Unprecedented” period of “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” of 1946-2007?

And when you get done with that, JimD, can you also explain how this, the period of CAGW, has actually only seen rising temperatures for roughly 13 years?

It would be too easy if Denizens scores everytime they cried “but alarmism!,” Danny. You’d only need to do like Swood and alternate between “alarmism!” and “religion!” Koldie, who has more than 10% of the comments as we speak, would be the Denizens’ top scorer.

It may not turn into an epic thread. Judy pronounced the magic word. There’s nothing better than the M-word to chum concerns. Issuing a memo to Ted all candidates to borrow her playbook seems to be enough for now.

“Now you don’t hear them talking about global warming, you hear them talking merely about climate change”

I’m assuming that part since “Climate Change” is largely so 2012 – now its “Climate Disruption” and/or “Climate Weirding” after much of the population became aware of the whole no change for nearly 20 years thing

The reason for that alteration is because the data demonstrate the Earth is not warming.

I would say that the data show that the Earth has not warmed significantly for about 17 years, but that’s quite different from saying it’s not warming, period. Over the long term, it has been warming for a couple hundred years in the recent past, and, more generally, it has been warming since the last ice age.

The scientific issue is more about whether the Earth is experiencing dangerous rates of warming, rather than whether it is warming at all.

‘The reason for that alteration is because the data demonstrate the Earth is not warming.’
…
The scientific issue is more about whether the Earth is experiencing dangerous rates of warming, rather than whether it is warming at all.”

Which was exactly what Cruz was talking about. Why redefine his comment to imply he was talking about centuries of climate?

fizzy, I also wince every time I see such a statement about “not warming” or “no warming in X years”. It may be useful rhetorically, but if one wants to convey nuance, one needs to be precise as well. What’s key is not finding a period (and record) over which the temperature [OLS] trend is zero, but that the temperature change (for all records, and over a long enough interval) is noticeably different from that projected by the models whose dire forecasts are the basis for the “climate change is the most important problem” and “we must do something…ANYthing!” faction. The data suggest warming continues, but not at an alarming rate.

I also wince every time I see such a statement about “not warming” or “no warming in X years”. …The data suggest warming continues, but not at an alarming rate.

The problem here is the confusion that has been intentionally created between AGW and CAGW. Alarmists use the term ‘warming’ to mean CAGW, and the word seems to have taken on that connotation. The ‘97%’ polls ask questions about AGW and then report it as if they had asked about CAGW. The problem is that a skeptic who uses the term ‘warming’ with that special meaning opens himself up to the type of criticism that you describe, and is even accused of ignorance about the distinction.

I am not necessarily a Ted Cruz fan, but he is NOT a stupid man. His statements on climate change show that he is thinking and listening to arguments on both sides of the issue. I hope other presidential candidates will weigh in with similar thoughtfulness. Jerry Brown is a joke everywhere other than in California.

Since we only have one Democratic candidate so far, directing your offer to the numerous Republican candidates seems valid. I would expect Hilary to duck for as long as she can, just as she is doing on the current Obama/Israel fiasco.

I grew up in a family environment that was strongly biased to the Democratic party of FDR, HST, JFK, LBJ and HHH. I have been moving more and more towards identifying with the Republican party. Obama’s silliness wrt CAGW is outweighing my aversion to religious fundamentalism and a few other conservative social issues that don’t resonate with me.

I like this post and hope to see some good comments from the denizens.

That’s a down in the weeds issue. Far too much money and resources are being thrown at climate science already at the expense of other far more worth causes for out limited budget for science. the whole thing is political. Rational objective analysis would show it is not a priority for research – as Bjorn Lomborg has been showing for more than a decade.

It is, after all, a matter of justifying policy and evaluating risk vs. asking how confident we are of the data with which to set risk

True. So, consider this question: After over 2 decades of global warming and climate change hysteria, why don’t we have the data needed for objective rational policy analysis? Why don’t we have pdfs of:

– time to the next abrupt climate change event
– direction of the next abrupt climate change (to warming or cooling)
– duration of next abrupt climate change event
– magnitude of the total change
– rate of change
– damage function

When you consider it objectively, the climate scientist have been practicing religion and have not provided the information needed for rational policy analysis.

Those who oppose wasting money on totally unjustified policies that ewill seriously damage the world’s economy – thus retarding the rate of improvement of human well being world wide- for no benefit are being entirely rational.

The sooner the USA votes out Obama and the Democrats out of office the better for the USA and the whole world. Obama has been the worst US president in my life time, and not just because of his climate cult beliefs.

Thank you for a rather insightful post (although I think your last paragraph is a lost cause as I see ALL politics as a zero sum game : ). I had lost some hope of seeing such thinking, but maybe this portends a change is afoot.
GeoffW

A long time ago, I had the job of computer scheduling a series of tasks of various durations with a minimum wait between tasks. In effect it was a model tweaked by parameters. We finally got it to work more effectively than manual methods on one simple problem. There were many sets of tasks.

We realized we did not know what many parameters represented in the real world, and had little idea how to set some of them.

We advised management to pull the plug. Management accepted the situation and our recommendation. No repercussions; as I wrote above, it was a long time ago.

Lesson: learn what the parameters are in the real world and how to calculate them based upon data.

“It doesn’t matter how much you want to continue riding, beating a dead horse is not going to get you anywhere.” (idiom)

As one of the few long time Southern Democrats who also happens to be a strong climate skeptic, I have one thing to say on the matter.

It’s entirely possible that, within the next two presidential elections, the lack of certainty in looming climate catastrophe will cause the Democratic party of the United States a great downfall. It’s not a wedge issue today. I’m suggesting that it will be. Wise Democrats (are there any left in the party?) would start making plans to walk back some of the political rhetoric so they can pick up the moderates who have grown tired of the empty cries of doom and gloom.

Being a loyal Dem the way I’ve been, and who uses geoscience in my job everyday, I can’t help but to *wish* for a candidate that will listen to some science adviser who didn’t get his/her degree from the Greenpeace website.

Has the theory really been fundamentally modified because of a slow down of over 17 or so years? I don’t think so. I think they are looking for explanations in terms of understanding internal variability and getting the measurements right, but I don’t think this means we really have to change the theory.

i think the use of theory is more colloquial than the literal, scientific way you want to perceive it. A bit straw-mannish IMO. The underlying theory has not changed, because it is based on some scientific facts. The problem becomes, when you take pristine lab experiments to a devilishly complex system.

There is another underlying theory tested and proven every day in labs all over the world that increased levels of co2 make green things grow larger, faster, produce more of what we need and want while using less water. They are called greenhouses.

There is another theory tested and proven every day that increased levels of co2 make green things grow faster, larger, produce more of what we need or want while using less water. The are called greenhouses.

The problem is that political statements have never been constrained by the facts. The ‘hiatus’ seems to be a significant problem for alarmist theory but not when every natural disaster is attributed to climate change, with those denying this being compared to people who deny gravity.

It’s still getting warmer there swood. Remember last year was the highest on record This year is looking like a warm one. You can see from any graph where we decades ago and where it is now. Higher temperatures are the new normal

No, it’s not getting warmer, none of the temperature series used by climate scientists and modellers has shown change significantly different from zero since 1998. And 2014 was only the warmest on record if you believe that global tempertures can be known accurately to a hundreth of a degree or so, which clearly they can’t. Within the limits of accuracy, it is similar to several earlier years.

I think 1998 is an outlier that skews the trend, but if you look at the change over decades (such as 30 years) you would see that temperatures have risen rather significantly and one would expect that trend to continue as long as we increase our emissions.

Do you really think that you can see a long-term trend over just 30 years? Take a look at the trend in Greenland over the last 4000 years, here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL049444.pdf on page three. Is there anything remarkable about the last 30 years in the context of the last 4000?

Re: “warmest on record”. I have seen a subsequent correction to “third warmest on record”. Who to believe?
Re: “looking like a warm one”. This year-to-date (here) heating degree days since 7/1/2015 are +4.7% > normal and +3.97% > last year. Looking from here, not like a warm one. I suspect Boston, NYC, Detroit, Duluth, etc. would have the same outlook, if they could see over the snow. Granted, a limited sample; the western states may have a different view.

My guess is that ultimately they will “modify the theory” so that the actual forcing from CO2 actually coincide with reality. t which point the debate will be over and the AGW proponents will “win” although the CAGW proponents will be left isolated.

But that is not modification of theory, but more rather re-parameterization.. I know climate model lets seem a bit proud of the fact they are not curve fitting, but constraining their parameters by reality. But reality is forcing them to re-parameterize. It will just show up under a different name and method. With billions of dollars being spent on/by very smart people that has to be the way forward.

“Climate change is one of the defining issues of our times. We have one uncontrolled, poorly observed experiment. We cannot observe the future. Climate change and policy are too complex for a single person to understand. Climate policy is about choosing one future over another. That choice can only be informed by the judgment of experts — and we must have confidence in their learning and trust their intentions.

“Climate research lost its aura of impartiality with the unauthorised release of the email archives of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Its reputation of competence was shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of Michael Mann. Innocence went with the allegations of sexual harassment by Rajendra Pachauri and Peter Gleick’s fake memo. Cook’s paper shows the climate community still has a long way to go in weeding out bad research and bad behaviour. If you want to believe climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.”

Not raging enough, I fear, it washes over most people. I think that it is raging more at high political levels, many ordinary people seem to have decided that after years of warnings of catastrophe in which nothing much happened, CAGW is not even a third order issue. But not Obama: against the wishes of Obama, countries such as the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea are likely to join China’s new development bank, along with another 30 or so mostly poor countries. A defining issue is Obama’s insistence on tight restrictions on World Bank, IMF and OECD financial support for the coal-fired power stations which most countries require for growth. Quote from The Australian: “Mr Obama’s administration has been tightening international funding for coal-fired generation but the Asia Infrastructure Development Bank is likely to be more sympathetic to the pleas of developing nations. The expansion of coal-fired power generation is a boon to Australia’s coal exporters [not to mention the coal-consuming nations] and represents a boost to the flagging Japanese economy [as a plant supplier]. … Australia has joined forces in international fora to resist the US campaign of limiting lending to developing nations seeking more efficient coal-fired generation. The technology offers the promise of cheaper power.”

I’d like to see your link, but it requires a subscription. I have seen polls that show climate as not that important an issue, but I also see a bunch of rage directed at Ted Cruz characterizing him as anti-science. There may well be a lot to dislike about Ted Cruz but many are angrily and self righteously denouncing him as scientifically illiterate and a liar to boot based on his statements that Judith quotes.

Suggesting Teds statements are not so out there, at best leads to stunned silence and head shaking from many self proclaimed defenders of science. These people have been sold the 97% concensus, that 2014 is the hottest year on record, and that the current low maximum on arctic ice stand as unassailable evidence of impending climate doom.

Thanks for the info faustino. It is refreshing to see what I hope will be a growing trend among developed nations who recognize that the path to reducing poverty in developing nations will be paved using abundant, reliable, and affordable energy, and in this case, coal. The fact that the net benefits of coal are orders of magnitude greater than a detriment is completely lost on the cagw crowd.

” differences in the weight they apply to past observations versus futures simulated by climate models”

BINGO, we have a winner, who in their right mind would make policy decisions that will impoverish millions (probably billions) of people based on “simulated” future events ????

I did I simulation where I became a billionaire, and all my missing hair grew back if I simply liquidated all my assets and gave them to Al Gore so he could “control” the climate. I also played a cool new computer game where I saved the Earth by shooting down little purple things flying across the screen.

I’ve been in many of these “food fights” during my engineering career, turns out the data always wins, always, does not matter how well regarded some folks are, or how many of their previous designs worked spectacularly, the data ALWAYS wins. If the new plane design refuses to “become airborne” it does not matter how many peer reviewed scientific papers asserted with 95% certainty that it will fly (aka “become airborne”).

Stupid is when the plane is not assuming an airborne condition and asserting over and over again that; “any minute now IT WILL FLY, trust us, we have a simulation”.

Some folks are merely observing that this plane ain’t flying (i.e. we don’t need no stinking LIFT, we got simulations). Wise (not stupid) folks would observe that the tires on the plane are still in firm contact with the Earth’s surface and reevaluate the simulations.

Or you could just proclaim that all those folks observing the tires in contact with the Earth’s surface are “stupid” (not that Dr. Curry is proclaiming that).

Agreed. While Obama care is a disaster, if Obama and the dems have their way with the energy sector, it will make Obama care look relatively benign. Defunding the epa may be our only shot, if that is even possible with the current gop “leadership”.

While it may be true that climate change may not specifically make the list, most US citizens have been so indoctrinated that they will agree, essentially, that fossil fuel use is dooming the planet. Also, the current regime does not really care what the public thinks, nor imo does the average politician on either side.

The left has done a good job, even though a dishonest one when you look at a actual facts, of making a moral argument against fossil fuels. It is relatively easy to manipulate not only young minds, but older left leaning fools with pictures of stranded polar bears, even when there is no data to support the claim of dwindling populations. That is why a book like “the moral case for fossil fuels” is so important. It simply makes a valid case that fossil fuels are what make the lives we (in the developed world) live possible. Without them, our life expectancy would be far shorter and our health far poorer. Our ability to travel the world, even to luxurious climate conferences, would be severely curtailed, as would our ability to simply feed the world given the farming methods that would be available to us w/o fossil fuels.

As I have asked many times here and other places to those who claim fossil fuels are so evil, name me one thing in your life that you eat, drink, wear, walk on, use, or otherwise consume that is not somehow dependent on fossil fuels. I have yet to get a response the the question.

A great figure in Australian and NZ sport yesterday said the problem with our modern Rugby League is that it is run by those who have never heard “the sprigs on the concrete”.

The hobbyists who have rushed into the field of climate science have little interest in actual climate and the physical world. Too hard, too vast, too long. Bo-ring. They will grasp at anything they can numerise or process into stats, graphs and models, regardless of how superficial or speculative. And – god help us all – they will publish!

There is the true scandal: faddism and hobbyism strangling an important science at birth.

I always thought stupid was what the politicians were shooting for in their posturing. A quotation from Mein Kampf chapter 6 seems pertinent:

Here the art of propaganda consists in putting a matter so clearly and forcibly before the minds of the people as to create a general conviction regarding the reality of a certain fact, the necessity of certain things and the just character of something that is essential. But as this art is not an end in itself and because its purpose must be exactly that of the advertisement poster, to attract the attention of the masses and not by any means to dispense individual instructions to those who already have an educated opinion on things or who wish to form such an opinion on grounds of objective study – because that is not the purpose of propaganda, it must appeal to the feelings of the public rather than to their reasoning powers.

All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. When there is question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence, as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a relatively high degree of intelligence among the public.

The more modest the scientific tenor of this propaganda and the more it is addressed exclusively to public sentiment, the more decisive will be its success. This is the best test of the value of a propaganda, and not the approbation of a small group of intellectuals or artistic people.

The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. That this is not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been sharpened to the highest pitch is only another proof of their vanity or mental inertia.

Once we have understood how necessary it is to concentrate the persuasive forces of propaganda on the broad masses of the people, the following lessons result therefrom:

That it is a mistake to organize the direct propaganda as if it were a manifold system of scientific instruction.

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. If this principle be forgotten and if an attempt be made to be abstract and general, the propaganda will turn out ineffective; for the public will not be able to digest or retain what is offered to them in this way. Therefore, the greater the scope of the message that has to be presented, the more necessary it is for the propaganda to discover that plan of action which is psychologically the most efficient.

While it’s normal for Australian PMs to merge official with party and personal travel reasons – Australia is kind of large – conservative Abbott is singled out by Australia’s poisonous media.

The story actually came from one shabby branch of the Murdoch press, which, non-Australians may be surprised to learn, is full of spiteful, self-loathing Watermelons, those natural media denizens. (Murdoch’s literate flagship, The Australian, is often a happy exception.)

His news.com.au reads like a low-rent Guardian (which is itself pretty low-rent). If only Rupert really was the sinister Mr Burns he is made out to be!

I like ‘The Australian’ because it is by far the most responsible MSM paper in Australia. It is balanced and has mostly mature journalists who were brought up in a time when journalism was learnt and practiced as a serious professional responsibility. Those days have long gone, but the best of them are with the Australian. They are (mostly) responsible and honest. And they are overseen by an owner who has grown up in journalism and news papers and fully understands and defends the responsibility of the media. No other MSM organisation in Australia is doing that.

Have to agree. I don’t think we’re lucky to have most of the Murdoch press, but the Australian is that rarest of products: a newspaper worth buying and reading. Can’t be an easy thing to achieve, or more publishers would do it. I can only thing of FAZ as its equal.

Proof is that the Australian attracts and publishes the excellent correspondence of one Faustino, who is so rational off the subject of cricket. (On cricket, he is sheer Anglo-Indian delirium.)

The ABC’s Roast is a prime example of what government funding, inner-urban smugness and appealing to New Class cheer squads can achieve without any investment in talent or humour.

Our national broadcaster specialises in lugubrious man-boy comedians who are as funny as root canal therapy. These professional naughty-guys would have a hissy fit if their lavish public service superannuation and entitlements were five cents short for the month.

When you complain about tedious trash like the Roast you’ll be told that the ABC has a vital role in broadcasting cattle sales and other rural news. Of course, it’s not the cattle sale reports which cost all the taxpayers’ money.

While I’ve never been a keen supporter of Abbott, I find, like a lot of people, that the media luvvies are driving me toward sympathy for the guy.

If he walks a certain way or eats an onion, we are told it is an international outrage and he must be stopped. A shrug, wink or the mildest comment (in amongst genuine gaffes) is enough to send our New Class Betters into paroxysms of tut-tutting and phony indignation. As an active lifesaver and fire-fighter, he is ridiculed for wearing the normal clothes for those roles. His annual sacrifice of holiday to help out in aboriginal communities is simply blacked out by media luvviedom.

The guy is not of the tribe, and nothing he says or does can be okay. If he were of the tribe he could get away with anything. It’s called Polanski Effect. The Herd of Independent Minds will defend you on the strength of your tribal credentials, no matter what you have done. Handy that.

> The Herd of Independent Minds will defend you on the strength of your tribal credentials, no matter what you have done.

Quite right. Here is a Herd of mathematicians concentrating on what is said:

Do politicians lie? Of course they do, including, of course, Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Whether it’s the manufacturing of a budget “crisis”, or the systematic trashing of election promises, or pretending that taxes are anything-but-taxes, or lying about spying, or lying about lying, Abbott has demonstrated his disdain for the truth.

There is no need to go into detail here since Mike Carlton has already documented much of the fibbing, ably assisted by Annabel Crabb and Laurie Oakes and Bernard Keane and … well, pretty much every political commentator who isn’t a Liberal Party shill.

And Tony Abbott is not alone. The Prime Minister leads a fine cabinet of companion liars, including the Minister for the Destruction of Education, Christopher Pyne. A “unity ticket” on the Gonski education reforms? Nope, just some airbrushing of history and yet another lie.

The overarching lie is that Prime Minister Abbott is leading a conservative government. In fact, Australia is being pummelled by American-style, dog-eat-dog radicals. Far from being conservative, current Liberal Party philosophy is little more than adolescent-level libertarianism.

Then there’s the Fairfax press, publisher of the Age. It exists to make even the Guardian look adult.

What’s funny is that, though we Australians are saturated daily (at our own cost in the case of the ABC) with this New Class/Posh Left media slop, there are still people who want to point it out to us – as if we could miss it!

When I read Mein Kampf in college, I remember wondering if someone had slipped a hit of acid in my join… er… cigarette.

Further evidence that the author was delusional, even about propaganda:

“That it is a mistake to organize the direct propaganda as if it were a manifold system of scientific instruction.”

Modern progressive propagandists have gained massive power through exactly such propaganda. The CAGW movement being the best, classic example. But the growth of the ‘science’ of sociology as an excuse for implementing idiotic progressive policies is a close second.

And this:

“All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.”

is simply untrue as well. The first target of progressive propaganda is the self appointed elite themselves – academia, media, etc. AR5 is overwhelmingly propagandistic, particularly its SFP. If the activist progressives, who actually know what they are doing, can con the default progressives first, the battle is already half won. There is lowest common denominator propaganda, but it is by no means the most effective.

You know, there is nothing wrong with propaganda. The word itself is not really a pejorative. Radio Free Europe and its Asian counterpart were propaganda – honest propaganda with good intent. It is a tool and like any other tool, it can be misused.

You don’t have to look to Adolf to show that progressive politicians think the voters are stupid, Jonathan Gruber made that fact quite clear much more recently.

Why do you suppose that you were reading Mein Kampf in college, Gary? Was it because the author was some obscure delusional character who didn’t know how to effectively use propaganda? Propaganda is like advertising. What sells in one time and place doesn’t work for crap in other times and places.

I was reading M.K. because it helped to get insight into the third most prolific mass murderer of the 20th Century.

Perhaps you disagree with my view that he was delusional, and you see him as a clear headed realist who was before his time?

By all means, share with us the valuable lessons you take from his schizophrenic diatribe.

I for one think quoting that collection of hatred, lust for power and bile (pretentiously disguised as an intellectual’s philosophy) in the context of a normal political discussion is a mistake. I can think of a lot of other places to look to for insight on propaganda without doing an implicit Godwin. His book (which shall not be named because that got me stuck in moderation before) should be viewed only as an artifact of history. There is nothing of value in there.

I for one think quoting that collection of hatred, lust for power and bile (pretentiously disguised as an intellectual’s philosophy) in the context of a normal political discussion is a mistake.

Given your response and what you appear to think I said, I’ve come to agree with you. I didn’t realize quoting Mein Kampf was ‘doing an implicit Godwin.’ I compared no one, certainly not my opponents, to any German regimes which shall remain nameless (to avoid moderation). My point was a simple one liner; I thought politicians deliberately said stupid things for propaganda purposes.

Since it seems you’ve walked away with the impression that I’ve ‘done an implicit Godwin’ and since I know this is a mistaken impression (as I know of my own first hand knowledge that I intended no such thing) I agree with you. It was a mistake to quote Mien Kamph to support my point, because it distracted from my simple point.

I can think of a lot of other places to look to for insight on propaganda without doing an implicit Godwin. His book (which shall not be named because that got me stuck in moderation before) should be viewed only as an artifact of history. There is nothing of value in there.

It doesn’t matter if I think Mein Kampf is a load of hooey. It doesn’t even matter if Mein Kampf is in fact a load of hooey. It matters to my point if politicians (some? any? not sure) think Mein Kampf is a load of hooey, since this affects whether or not they think it expedient to say stupid things for propaganda purposes.

“Perhaps you disagree with my view that he was delusional, and you see him as a clear headed realist who was before his time?”

That is really pathetic, Gary. You can’t put words in my mouth or intimidate me with that crap. Get a grip on yourself. You are incapable of engaging in a discussion without ranting and raving. The progressives have got you rattled, Gary.

After commenting on how far Dr. Curry has traveled in her ‘evolving’ views on the climate debate, we get another reflexive “they are both politicizing the science” meme.

“The differences between the U.S. Democrats and Republicans on this issue is rooted in their preferred policies, not so much the mainstream science.
On the Democratic side, we have the President’s Climate Action Plan.
On the Republican side, we have the Senate Minority Report: Critical Thinking on Climate Change.
While I can pick some nits of each of these in terms of the science, neither document is irrational. They reflect differences in interpretation of scientific evidence, differences in the weight they apply to past observations versus futures simulated by climate models, different assessments of risk, different policy preferences, different values, etc.”

I looked briefly through both and the Republican Minority Report, like Cruz’s statement, contained nothing scientifically objectionable from what I did read.

I skimmed the Obama Climate Action Plan and saw nary a sign of science; simply assumptions of the certainty and severity of CAGW, and a series of progressive policies he would be pushing if we were headed into an ice age.

Suggesting equivalence between the two as examples that both sides are driven solely by their political agenda has no basis in the reports that I could see.

If you want to accuse Republicans of politicizing science, how about posting an actual example? Which of the scientific claims in the Republican Minority Report are “rooted in their preferred policies?”

Would it be too much to ask the Republicans for once to address the issue with a little intellectualism? Even if they have to fake it. Everything is going their way but they work overtime to blow it with something stupid.

All the major Republican candidates should participate in a joint briefing with the best scientists from both sides of the issue so they can listen to the debate that the scientific community is having. Their focus should be on the nuances of the science and the level of uncertainty, as well as learning where there is general agreement. For each candidate to rely on their own expert would be disastrous since not only will the Democrats exploit the differences but so will the interest groups and the MSM.

“Would it be too much to ask the Republicans for once to address the issue with a little intellectualism?”

For the record I am an independent (although the last democratic president I voted for was Jimmy, whoops, I was a youngster and we all make mistakes).

Hows this for a little “intellectualism”; the radiative greenhouse effect (which allegedly controls the temperature at the surface of the Earth) is STILL just a hypothesis… Just because it has been included in textbooks and many pal reviewed published papers does not elevate it to a THEORY or even a LAW. It is a HYPOTHESIS, and NONE of the predictions (Arrhenius, Callendar or Hansen) have come true. This plane is mired in the mud on the runway……

cerescokid: “intellectualism”? Would that include presentation of evidence and counter-evidence, plus cost and consequences of each side’s recommendations?
If so, then this blog as a whole is a good place to start.

Tamino picks a 5 year average so the “trend” from 1998 includes 1995.5 to 1998 for a little boost. Ben Santer published a paper making 17 years the minimum period required for a “statistically significant” trend in the satellite data, so you could say Santer’s “cherry picked” the timing. 1998 also was the start of the Kyoto Protocol so that is a convenient “political” starting point.

UAH is currently running a little warmer than RSS, but both are likely to be adjusted fairly soon. When that happens the trend for both will be about zero. The uncertainty in both is about +/- 0.2 C degrees.

So Tamino doesn’t show the monthly data or any indication of uncertainty and picks an averaging period that produces the effect he wants you to paste around.

The interesting thing is you’re still insisting on making it clear you’re a troll with insufficient information to constructively participate here. Only an uinformed nitwit would consider the graph you posted “interesting”. It’s just wrong.

Here’s the deal.

First of all I have no idea where that graph comes from. It isn’t a linear trend of UAH data that’s for sure.

This is the UAH linear trend for exactly the past 17 years (204 months):

I like Moncktons approach of starting with now and looking back in time until you get a statistically significant trend. Recent increases in GMT has actually shortened the period of “no statistical warming” by a few months. You have to beyond a period of over 18 years in order to get a statistically significant trend, but this wiggles up and down by a few months depending on temperature variability.

I think this is a fair and honest approach. This way there can be no accusation of cherry picking.

If anyone disagrees with that I’d be interested to hear their reasoning.

And when you see Person A accusing Person B of cherry picking when Person B is working backwards from the present time, you know Person A is either stupid or not acting in good faith. See quite a lot of that.

Those of you in the US who have virtually never heard of Ted Cruz, really ought to expand your sources of news and fact. The filtered version you are getting is leaving out a lot more, of much more importance, than the story of the junior senator from Texas.

Here’s the full quote from which the “stupid party” reference to the GOP comes:

“There two parties in Washington — the stupid party and the evil party. Every once in a while the stupid party and the evil party get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. In Washington, that is called bipartisanship.”

As an aside, I suspect that no one here has a lower opinion of the intelligence of the current Republican Party leadership than I, though probably for much different reasons.

US share of global GDP peaked at around one third right after WWII and has been declining ever since. Not surpsingly, US share of CO2 emissions also peaked then and has been declining since:

US emissions, like most of the developed worlds’, are now falling in absolute terms ( thanks to effeciency, aging, and shrinking populations ).
And just like the rest of the world has followed and advanced economically, so to are they inevitably following the emissions patterns for the same reasons. Politicians, of course, are not known for thinking much, but if they could, they might consider how humans could advance past being guided by millenia old superstitions instead of non-problems like ‘climate change’.

Politifact is correct that 17 years is a cherry pick, and therefore the statement is misleading at best. A more complete picture would say that in the 17 years before 1998, it rose 0.5 C, so the average in the last 34 years is actually still 0.15 C per decade, and the models are not far off when you take the longer picture, even better if you include the last 60 years. You may ask how can one 17 year period be so different from the next, and it is natural variability, partly helped by the solar lull of late. The rise rate is 0.15 C per decade as a long-term mean +/-0.15 C per decade with the natural variability on 15-year time-scales, most of which self-cancels on 30-year scales. The 15-year trend does vary a lot in the historical record, and this last 15 years is no exception to that variation.

The point is not that the 17 years is evidence that there is no globalclimatewarmingchange.

What makes the hiatuspause relevant is that the CAGW glitterati were predicting ceaseless warming, no snow in England, disappearing glaciers, and drowning polar bears, oh my. And then their own reports came to a standstill with a thud heard throughout the climate. And it’s still echoing 18 years later.

The time to talk about uncertainty, natural variability, and unknown unknowns was in the ARs. But that would have messed with the PR message, which is why the scientists who really understood the uncertainty did not push to include it. The damage to their credibility is their own fault.

And there is nothing any of you can do to make the hiatuspause go away, because it is shown in their own carefully adjusted, computer generated temp reports.

But Jim do you remember in any of the other IPCC reports where they wrote about and depicted this (whatever you want to call it) as they did in AR5. If there was no significance to this (thing) why would they not have just ignored it and treated the variability as they did in the previous 4 ARs. Something changed in their eyes. Because they referenced it and illustrated it in AR5 and not previous ARs, that seems to be evidence they viewed recent temperature trends as being different than what they thought about the warming trend since the first AR.

You aren’t suggesting that the IPCC would have continued to ognore the scientific evidence of the hiatuspause if it had not become a big issue in the media, are you? I thought the IPCC was the gold standard of scientific assessment. Surely you aren’t saying that the IPCC decides what to put in its publications based on politics?

There’s no cherry pick. Was it a cherry pick that in talking about “global warming” when the consensus used then current increases in reported surface temps in the FAR, SAR, AR3, and AR4?

The argument is that there is a pause/hiatus in the projected warming. If you want to state how long this hiatus is, the only logical starting point is the last year that reported temps increased in line with expectations.

Now I don’t think the GAT reports are worth the multi-million dollar computers they are generated on. as far as the purpose for which they are advertised.. So my ‘faith’ in the pause is equal to my ‘faith’ in the rest of the reports. But it is not a cherry pick.

The only thing he said about global warming was this pause. He didn’t say we have had 0.7 C since 1950 as background. It was not a balanced evaluation of the totality of climate change by any stretch. He could mention the glacial mass loss, Arctic sea-ice records, that land warming has not paused, ocean heat content has not paused. He chose only to talk about his one factoid, and that was climate change to him.

I’d say he was much like you in his “singular” focus jimd, except that I doubt he is as dogmatic about his view as you are re your view that only co2 has the power to control climate, nothing else matters, only co2.

The hiatuspause is not a factoid. It is a huge embarrassment to the leaders of the CAGW movement.

it was they who pretended that “Global Average Temperature” was global, an average, and about temperature. It was they who made GAT the center piece of the ad campaign, and ignored heat content when talking to the public. It was they who claimed that the rise in temperatures would be consistent, and uninterrupted by anything like that imaginary “natural variability”. (Just look at the graphs in the all of the ARs, all the press releases, for decades.) It was they who denied the hiatuspause that was apparent in their own temp reports for the first 15-16 years of its duration.

You can call it a factoid all you want. It ain’t going away. It was and is a PR disaster for the CAGW cause.

Now that won’t stop demagogues like Obama who will never have to stand for election again, but it will make it harder for the politicians who still have to run to continue down the same path.

Jim D. If you chose 30 years, it is approximately 1/2 the 60 to 70 year “wiggle” we can see in the record. In that wiggle, we can pick whatever start and end points we want to produce a trend. Consistency is a virtue.

Jim D, I can prepare an excel model to match average surface temperature, (all I need is the measured temperatures and other parameters)…. However, the excel spreadsheet doesn’t do very well when I try to use it to make a 100 year forecast. CGMs are like my spreadsheet, they do fairly well matching the global average, but they are pretty bad at forecasting the climate.

Politifact is correct that 17 years is a cherry pick, and therefore the statement is misleading at best.

Only if the 17 year hiatus does no injury to alarmist theory. But if you look at page 92 of the APS Climate Change Statement Review Workshop, http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf, you will see this statement by Dr. William Collins, head of the Climate Sciences Department, and director of the Center at LBNL for Integrative Modeling of the Earth System (CLIMES) at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory (LBNL), as well as lead author on the Fourth and Fifth Assessment of the IPCC:

“Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 18 of 20 years are vanishingly small.”

How can you argue that a 17 year hiatus, considered by itself, does not provide significant evidence against CAGW?

swood, “Unless the continuation is attributed to the ‘odds’ instead of to a flaw in alarmist theory.”

The odds are the flaw in alarmist theory. There is a normal range of variability on a number of times scale over the entire surface. The “odds” of those variations continually summing to zero are vanishingly small. You can pick a variety of statistical methods to make them appear to be large, that the past is almost perfectly flat, but you still have the plain Jane probability or odds that significant anomalies can happen.

That subject gets a lot of “soft science” attention like A. M. Selvam’s self-organizing criticality papers. No definite causative mechanism involved, just if it happened before it can happen again and similar happenings are also likely. Once you get into a new state or situation, the probability of staying in that state changes all the initial probabilities.

There are likely dozens of “disciplines” devoted to this issues, but basically the higher precision you want the more pooh pooh can occur. I like Murphy’s Law myself :)

It depends a lot on what the hiatus follows. It did not follow normal trends, but anomalously high trends in the previous 15 years. Taken together the hiatus just returns the long-term trend to normal. This is not realized by many who look only myopically at the recent 17 years of the temperature series.

We have heard from Cruz that he would tell the truth. Has he now told a lie?; i.e. climate change? I don’t think so. His statement is clear and factual. It is hard to find some fault in what he has said regarding climate change.

Is his early announcing his Presidential aspirations some sort of gambit, i.e. staking out the areas for subsequent Republican discussion? Maybe.

Cruz’s climate statements are truthful to the extent that are in contrast to the public utterances of Obama. Obama’s denier declarations are to be seen as rear guard actions in a failed campaign. On climate change, Obama will loose the war. These early political skirmishes show Obama’s position and those whom he has surrounded himself are inept.

I like the way Cruz declared. He didn’t announce his intent to form a committee to look into the possibility of creating an exploratory committee to determine whether he should communicate with party activists and contributors to help him decide whether he should announce a run for president at some time in the future,

He simply tweeted:
“I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support!”

Let’s hope that his 1st day of fund raising is a valid indication of a strong grass roots following. Getting a few bucks from a lot of donors is better than a lot of bucks from a few donors. The good news imo is that there are actually a few appealing candidates this time around, cruz being one, hillary, not so much.

Some neat tricks included having a student audience that were ordered to be there, and asking them to text some word to a number for some unspecified reason, but really to be able to collect their numbers so that he could spam them with all his campaign propaganda from now on. Classy stuff.

Right yimmy, Obama would never stoop to speaking only to a sympathetic audience, or, one that was actually ordered to attend, like west pointers who he manages to insult with some regularity. And I am sure no other politician, especially no dem ever spammed anyone.

Dr Philip Stott: “The IPCC, like any UN body, is political. The final conclusions are politically driven.”

The big difference between the two political parties — ostensibly representing the Left vs. the right — is that the Left is pro-UN and believes in the centralization of planning of society by a big and powerful government. The right believes in the power and preeminence of the individual over the government and therefore is pro-individual liberty not pro-UN and believes in a smaller and more limited government and more personal freedom and responsibility.

Completely agree with Cruz and your assessment of him. The stupid is all Jerry and Barack, both of whom I hold in high regard in other matters and have under different circumstances voted for. Kinda like back in the early seventies in school when everyone is searching and some of your friends suddenly became Jesus freaks and started preaching…

Unless my eyes were fooling me I thought I saw Ted Cruz on TV announce his plans to run for the Presidency at the Liberty University, with a speech using many of the techniques, speech cadence, and posturing of other mega-church hucksters. I’m not sure how that jibes with “He simply tweeted.”
I’d also note that Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, is the home of the Center for Creation Studies: “The purpose of the Center for Creation Studies is to promote the development of a consistent biblical view of origins in our students. The center seeks to equip students to defend their faith in the creation account in Genesis using science, reason and the Scriptures.”
I’m a skeptical lukewarmer and think the Theory of Evolution has been modified in a number of significant ways since Darwin, as our understanding of genes and genomes has grown. But, the significance of launching one’s campaign at a place that fosters Creationism, the most common of anti-science beliefs I am aware of, speaks more loudly to me than what he actually said. It’s what they do that sends the message, not what they say, right, Obama haters?

–I’m a skeptical lukewarmer and think the Theory of Evolution has been modified in a number of significant ways since Darwin, as our understanding of genes and genomes has grown. But, the significance of launching one’s campaign at a place that fosters Creationism, the most common of anti-science beliefs I am aware of, speaks more loudly to me than what he actually said. It’s what they do that sends the message, not what they say, right, Obama haters?–

Well, instead of thinking of Liberty University as being all about Creationism, one could think of the university largest private christian university in United States. And Ted Cruz is a christian and as is about 80% of population of the US.
I can understand atheist obsession about the Theory of Evolution as they cling to it because everything they have believed in has come to naught.

One might even get the impression that Darwin represents the beginning science or something silly like that. But of course science was going thing well before Darwin was born. Much occurred related to science at time of Darwin and later, but one doesn’t need Theory of Evolution to be a scientist.
One might feel one needs Theory of Evolution to be an atheist, but one also had atheist long before Darwin’s time.

I am not christian and don’t think creationism is valid. The idea that earth is only 6000 years old does fit my understanding. But I think there are many things more anti-science than creationism.
So I think there has been humans or human like for millions of years, which also means that since larger impactor hit earth every 1000 years [space rocks about 100 meter in diameter] that these humans have probably noticed hundreds of these events over their existence. Meaning Humans somewhere and at some time noticed something like 1/10th of the possible total of such events over couple million years. And it also possible much larger than 100 meter space rocks have impacted Earth over last couple million years- perhaps a rock as large as 1 km in diameter, or a few rocks of around this size. And such understand would also would not been supported by our understanding of science 50 years ago.
So it required going to the Moon, for such an idea to become acceptable as possible. .
Now for example I don’t believe that any space aliens have landed on Earth in modern times [nor any evidence of occurring in more ancient times], but I believe it’s possible there are intelligent aliens in our galaxy. It also seems if we ever encounter such aliens that we going to have to re-think some stuff.

There people who believe Space aliens have visited Earth. And I would say the “science” connected with this belief is more anti-science than creationism.
But I don’t find movies about ETs to be particular problem or an existential threat to society, and tend to like the stuff. Or better than most of the other junk.

What is even more anti-science is government desiring to silence different ideas or theories, So agree with Judith’s : “I REALLY object to President Obama’s ‘denier’ hunt, and insistence on the 97% scientific consensus in support of his policies.”
Witch hunt are not only anti-science but they are social insanity and we really have had and are having far to much of this kind of thing in our modern world.Now if Obama said he talking to space aliens, I might more alarmed by his insanity, but not by much. And 97% propaganda requires a lot of drug use to actually believe.

gbaikie,
Your rambling reply to my comment leaves me mystified. Firstly, you might have read my comment a little more carefully and noted I said: “Creationism, the most common of anti-science beliefs I am aware of,” “most common” and “I am aware of” being the qualifiers. Your reply was: “But I think there are many things more anti-science than creationism.” Maybe so, but I think if you check pollsters you’ll find Creationism is the most common anti-science belief in the United States. Wikipedia says there is a 40% acceptance rate for Young Earth Creationism alone, with its other forms garnering a sizable chunk of the public’s poorly-formed scientific beliefs.
Many Christians (note capitalization) are very comfortable with the Theory of Evolution. The Catholic Church surely is. You said: “I can understand atheist obsession about the Theory of Evolution as they cling to it because everything they have believed in has come to naught.” I can’t imagine what you were saying with that sentence. The scientist who doesn’t believe in the Theory of Evolution is a rare duck indeed. A significant group of them believe in Intelligent Design, but that is just a difference of belief in the origin of the forces that control evolution, not the general mechanisms.
Secondly try proofreading. You wrote: ” I am not christian and don’t think creationism is valid. The idea that earth is only 6000 years old does fit my understanding.” I assume you meant “does not fit understanding,” but given some of your other statements can’t be sure.
Your rambling about meteorites was odd, as well as full of inaccuracies. I was unable to understand its relevance. Ending it with: “So it required going to the Moon, for such an idea to become acceptable as possible.” was truly spectacularly wrong.
Lastly, in regards to Space Aliens, I hear X Files is returning to the Boob Tube soon. I read in a poll years ago that it was the main “source” of information for many of the people who had fanciful beliefs about aliens, etc. Perhaps, Creationism will be pushed aside as the most common anti-science delusion when the show finally reveals why aliens are so fixated on anal probing.

Science and religion are separate magesteria. An omnipotent God could create the universe in place with any initial conditions and the perfect appearance of a long history. Omnipotence implies control over time to run it forward or backward as desired.

Indeed as the movie series “The Matrix” put forward everything we are, everything we observe, could be a “virtual” world that exists only in simulation. Science cannot rule out that possibility. In fact math, science, and engineering are what inform us of the possibility that our universe might be an illusion. The programmer in control of the illusion, like with any computer simulation, may stop, start, or reset to any point in simulated time.

Other aspects of Christianity are self-evident. Would you rather live in a western Christian nation or a middle-eastern Islamic nation? Or maybe you’d like to live in a Bhuddist or Hindu nation? Me, I’m sticking with countries where the Protestant reformation first flourished and continues to flourish today. But that’s just me.

gbaikie,
Your rambling reply to my comment leaves me mystified. Firstly, you might have read my comment a little more carefully and noted I said: “Creationism, the most common of anti-science beliefs I am aware of,” “most common” and “I am aware of” being the qualifiers. Your reply was: “But I think there are many things more anti-science than creationism.” Maybe so, but I think if you check pollsters you’ll find Creationism is the most common anti-science belief in the United States. —

Maybe pollsters don’t believe that the belief in space aliens or ghosts
is anti-science.
In terms of general public policy what is more important, that God created
the universe and everything. Or that space aliens are controlling governments?
Creationism of course is small sub-group which about how God created the world. I would say it’s christian religion problem.
I would note that Jesus says nothing about this whole stuff regarded to .
Creationism. Or it’s entirely based upon the old testament. Or it’s entirely based upon the Jewish tradition. And Jews don’t tend to support Creationism. So you have imagine that Jews are not serious about
their religion, if they also don’t believe in this form of Creationism. And I would say in contrast, that it appear to me that Jews are pretty serious about religion- at least some of them. Or if I wanted to know more about the old testament, the experts would found among the Jews. And not say, Southern Baptists. And also the Catholics also are pretty learned in Christianity in general and they also aren’t strong supporters of Creationism.
And one also has strains in Christianity that are strongly interested in things like the Rapture and the end of days. Or as general thing all religion has weird stuff- not eating cow, not eating pork. Buddhists factions are concerned about killing any kind of life, which is even more crazy then PETA.
So nothing new here and why the US as the first amendment. Now difference or distinguishing aspect related to Creationism is the claim that
it is scientific. Of course some Buddhists also doing this, and others.
And it’s because of this, that one can even call it, anti-science, though I
would prefer to call it pseudo science.
And would call anti-science those who deny the obvious advantages
due to technologies would have come into existence due to advances
in science. For me anti-science are mostly beliefs which reject the modern world of automobiles, air travel, the widespread use of electricity, against use of nuclear energy, and use of fossil fuel, etc, and general think living a cave or mud huts is a better idea.
Though this kind anti-science is also religious in nature.

Judith – good luck with the above. However, as we all know, this is nothing to do with science. Science is just one of many battles in the current war on freedom. That the heartland of this war should be (Limey here) the land of the free and the home of the brave is all the more appalling. Poor old America.

A pox on both their houses is a simple thing to say. But sitting on the fence starts to become uncomfortable pretty quickly. It is easy to find fault with people speaking on both sides of an argument. What is more useful however is to quantify the nature of their faults and choose which person is closest to being correct, noting particularly how rational they are in the way they argue their positions, and how entrenched they are.

Seems to me like Cruz is for the most part arguing rationally. Furthermore while he might not be correct in every detail, he is pretty close. Everything he says at least has some basis in fact. He also seems not to be entrenched or invested in his position and appears open to persuasion
were the situation to change.

The Democrats on the other hand are not arguing rationally at all. They are using ad hominem’s, appeals to authority, intimidation, baseless assertions, and other rhetorical tricks. Their stated positions are light on detail and detached from the reality as if their policy was made on the basis of Hollywood climate disaster movies. They seem deeply entrenched in their positions, absolutely certain of their political correctitude and completely closed to any possibility that they might be in error.

I don’t have a dog in your political fight. But if it were me voting in this situation, I’d go for the rational one with the open mind.

I find nothing at all wrong with Ted Cruz’s statements about climate change that I have cited above. In fact, I think they reflect some actual nuance of understanding of the climate change issue.

Really? He appears to focus on a single dataset and said, more then once, that the Earth isn’t warming, which is clearly incorrect. He claims that terminology has changed, which is wrong. He also ascibes motives without any evidence. He also claims a theory was modified. That’s clearly not true. If anything, the underlying theory has essentially stayed the same and people have tried to understand why there are some discrepancies, which – as I see it – is how science is meant to work. Personally, I find his statement full of errors and un-verified assertions.

The earth hasn’t warmed as we were told to expect. The lack of warming has diverted the meme to ‘climate change’ and ‘weather wierding’ without any support from the data. Natural change has been understudied to the point of idiocy. The models are coyote ugly except for one Russian model with attractive curves. The uglier nexus of politics and narrative with science has so warped true inquiry into climate that we have examples such as yourself, evidently bright people with a complete blind side to the complexity of the debate beyond laboratory physics.

Theory (the computer models based on it) said the Earth would warm from more CO2. It didn’t. So, apparently in Cruz’ eyes, the theory was modified to say the heat was going into the ocean instead of the atmosphere. I think that’s a fair summary of what actually happened. To expect a thesis paper from a politician who needs to keep the statement short is pretty silly on your part, ATTP.

jim2,
Well, we known that energy has continued to go into the oceans, so the statement that the Earth has not warmed is incorrect. It has. The surface has simply warmed more slowly than was expected.

I tend to agree with the latter part of your comment. We shouldn’t necessarily nit pick things said by politicians or by the media: they’re not writing peer-reviewed journal papers. Would be nice if people applied this consistently, though.

Someone once said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, or some such.

I’ve read some accounts, as opposed to peer-reviewed papers which I refuse to pay for, that what measurements exist of ocean temperatures are inconclusive WRT to the absorption of the extra few watts/m2 of manmade CO2. Are you basing your statement on actual measurements or models, or some mixture?

I’ve also read that the IR generated by the extra CO2 would be absorbed in the first 10 microns of the ocean’s surface, with that energy being used to create water vapor.

While I can be cynical at times, I do appreciate your presence here. You don’t really seem to be just spouting the party line to me, although I can see there are people here who would disagree. I’m really interested in the “scientific” reasons you believe what you do. I’m more data driven than model driven. I think we need more data and more analysis of it by scientists who are barred from La-La land by a phalanx of statisticians.

measurements exist of ocean temperatures are inconclusive WRT to the absorption of the extra few watts/m2 of manmade CO2. Are you basing your statement on actual measurements or models, or some mixture?

I realise that some people claim that the measurements are poor, but I don’t think this is true. We have ARGO floats for the last decade or so, and other measurements going back to the 1950s. The coverage isn’t perfect for all times but, I believe, that historically this was a crucial part of US Navy submarine warfare and so our understanding of ocean heat content is probably better than some may realise. Similarly, we have sea level rise which is also consistent with the OHC estimates and which also show that energy has continued to accrue in the oceans.

I’ve also read that the IR generated by the extra CO2 would be absorbed in the first 10 microns of the ocean’s surface, with that energy being used to create water vapor.

No, this is incorrect. If you want to know more, this is a very good post. Also, in case you didn’t know, the author of that post is regarded as being on the more skeptical side of this topic.

The thory said if CO2 goes up the average global temperature goes up and it did for 15 years up to 1998.
Then it stopped.
And stayed stopped.
But CO2 keeps going up.
So global warming changed to Climate Change.
Heat decided to go into the oceans only ATTP?
How clever of it
And how thoughtless.
Crux focused on the only data set offered at the time,
Now you bring your variations
After the event.

So global warming changed to Climate Change.
Heat decided to go into the oceans only ATTP?

Well, no, obviously not. Consider the following: about 93% of the energy associated with the planetary energy imbalance heats the oceans, about 2% heats the atmosphere, the rest is continents, ice, etc. We’re currently accruing energy at a rate of about 10^22J/yr. The atmosphere has a mass around 10^19kg and a heat capacity of 1000J/kg/K. Therefore it would take 10^22J to increase the atmospheric temperature by 1 degree C.

If 2% of the incoming excess energy heats the atmosphere, that’s 2×10^20 J/yr, which would raise the atmospheric temperature by 0.02 degrees per year, or by 0.2 degrees per decade.

Now consider the following. Some internal cycle increases the amount going into the oceans by 1%, so 94% instead of 93%. That could halve the amount heating the atmosphere and hence reduce the warming rate from 0.2 degrees per decade to 0.1 degrees per decade.

Now, all these numbers are just ballpark figures. All I’m trying to illustrate is that a small change in the amount going into the oceans, can have a large effect on the rate at which the surface warms. I don’t know if this is what happened, but it’s certainly plausible.

The SAT and the earth are two different things. There was – “was” being the operative word – a slowdown in the warming of the surface air temperature: two meters above the land and the SSTs. This is a tiny percentage of the earth system. The warming of the oceans continued full steam ahead.

And it’s not coming back out in one effort to warm humanity in the next ice age. If it’s an ice age, we’re going to freaking freeze you kimwit.

30-year trend to 1999 – .159231 per decade.

30-year trend to 2006 – .189372 per decade (Got bigger in the first 7 years of 15-year hiatus?????). LMAO.

30-year trend to present – .16532 per decade (A larger trend than the 30 years to 1999!!!)

Lol. Wanna know what probably happened to Chef Hydro – the water boiler? The SOI just dropped below -10. It’s been negative for the vast majority of all days since last July. Curtains boys and girls. Your days as genius skeptics are very nearly done.

Lol, you gotta get off that stuff JCH, people are going to start talking. I was just thinking how concerned I am going to be in a few years about the mental health of the skeptics when the realization of their mistakes start to dawn on them. I give it all until about 2020 when the drip, drip, drip becomes a torrent of bad news. LMAO

Ken Rice (and then there’s physics) JC SNIP as usual about infrared absorption by the ocean.

It’s a measured fact that downwelling longwave infrared completely absorbed in ocean skin layer (first two millimeters). It’s also an established fact that the energy doesn’t migrate downward as the skin layer is nearly 1C cooler than the bulk of the ocean beneath it. Heat doesn’t travel from cooler to warmer, duh. The skin layer is cooler because evaporation is happening driven in part by longwave illumination from above and the process removes more energy than it adds to the skin layer.

ARGO fails to sample temperature of well over 50% of the global ocean.

The buoys dive no deeper than 2000 meters. The average depth of the global ocean is 4000 meters. ARGO does not sample in shallow waters near coastlines and it does not sample near or beneath Arctic and Antarctic waters. The buoys themselves tend to be clustered by ocean gyres further reducing their coverage.

That said, the measurement of OHC increase by ARGO is about 0.5W/m2. Our satellites can’t measure energy imbalance at TOA better than plus/minus 4W/m2 so ARGO at least agrees with satellites within the satellite margin of error.

The punch line is that 0.5W/m2 is enough to raise the ocean basin temperature by only 0.2C PER CENTURY. No typo there, Virginia. 0.5W/m2 evenly distributed through the vertical column in the ocean is only two tenths of a degree C temperature rise per every one hundred years. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, prohibits the diffused energy from becoming concentrated again thus it cannot ever serve to warm the atmosphere above the ocean by more than 0.2C,

If y’all will write down the following: “The sun heats the ocean and the ocean heats the atmosphere” it will serve you well as a beginning point to start working on smaller details of the earth’s energy budget.

I VERY highly recommend knowing and understanding why the earth’s energy budget is the way it is as described here:

One cannot begin to understand so-called global warming until one knows all the details of how energy enters and leaves the earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere, how that energy is distributed, and why.

ATTP the energy continues to go into the oceans?
93%?
And 2%into the atmosphere?
Your figures.
But for 17 years , 17 years the atmosphere ” decides to only take 1%.
And the oceans take up 94%?
Just like that?
Well that’s physics?
Forget about the science though.

…and Then There’s Physics | March 25, 2015 at 5:08 am
Judith,
I find nothing at all wrong with Ted Cruz’s statements…

Everything has context and Cruz’s comments are not academic nor are they directed to an academic audience. Leaders have to make decisions based on the real world that affects people. Over the last 15-20 years (you pick) global temperatures have not increased and “the earth isn’t warming.” Yes you can make academic arguments that the earth has been warming for 10,000 years or 150 years or from 1979 until 1998, or that the ocean is warming, but that is out of context with the political realities of AGW. Just as he might do poorly in academia, you or I might do poorly in politics.

To the average person on the street the terminology originally was Global Warming which became Climate Change and than Weather Weirding. In the context of his speech, he is correct. He was talking to the average person not academia.

Boy, you got me on the “ascribes motives without any evidence.” That is what politicians do. Just make sure that he is not selectively singled out for that criticism. Actually have seen many examples of commenters to this blog ascribing motives without evidence.

Academically “the underlying theory has essentially stayed the same” may be true but he is not in academia and is he not speaking to academia. The average guy or gal just trying to pay their bills and have a little fun in life think the theory is “your children won’t know what snow is like” or “the ocean will rise 10 feet.” I suspect that you could even get an academic argument that the theory has not stayed the same. That is what academic types do; challenge everything that is said. That is what you were trained to do and what you are doing in your comment.

In context Cruz got the basics right, he was not speaking to academia, and whether your comments were right wrong academically, they were out of context. I concur with Dr. Curry’s statement “I find nothing at all wrong with Ted Cruz’s statements about climate change…”

Excellent post. I listened to Cruz’s entire speech on FOX and he’s too right and too religious for my taste. In spite of that I got a good feeling listening to the man. I recall listening to Barack Obama’s speeches, and I felt he was insincere smooth talking slime by about the halfway through his run to get the presidential nomination.

Ted Cruz is capable of being rational and intelligent when the facts are in accord with his political and ideological requirements: When they are in conflict, he simply ignores the facts.

As a left-wing democrat, I have to deal with friends who are shocked that I “agree” with Cruz. A broken clock tells the right time twice a day, I always say. Anyway, I’m sure he loves his mother and thinks murderers belong in jail. I agree with that too.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday voted down an amendment that would have stated conclusively that climate change is occurring.

E&C Committee members voted 24-20 against the amendment, introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) to H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act. That bill, if it makes it through Congress, would put an end to EPA regulations on emissions for new power plants until technologies like carbon capture and storage are commercially viable in at least six states for one year. It passed in Tuesday’s committee, but the amendment, which would have placed on the record that the committee accepts that climate change is happening and is caused by greenhouse gas pollution, did not.

To not even acknowledge climate change is occurring due to greenhouse gases is to deny a pretty well accepted scientific fact. Who told them this?

Actually, Congress needs to take a responsible position regarding climate change. So I have drafted one for them.

An appropriate legislative motion would read like this:

Whereas, Extent of global sea ice is at or above historical averages;

Whereas, Populations of polar bears are generally growing;

Whereas, Sea levels have been slowly rising at the same rate since the Little Ice Age ended 150 years ago;

Whereas, Oceans will not become acidic due to buffering from extensive mineral deposits and marine life is well adapted to pH fluctuations that do occur;

Whereas, Extreme weather events have not increased in recent decades and such events are more associated to periods of cooling rather than warming;

Whereas, Cold spells, not heat waves, are the greater threat to human life and prosperity;

Therefore, This chamber agrees that climate is variable and prudent public officials should plan for future periods both colder and warmer than the present. Two principle objectives will be robust infrastructure and cheap, reliable energy.

The 2003 heatwave was blamed for 2,000 deaths, and treated as a national emergency. Sir David King, then chief scientific officer, declared that this meant climate change was ‘more serious even than the threat of terrorism’.
Since then, some 280,000 Brits have died from the cold and barely 10,000 from the heat. We have been focusing on the wrong enemy.http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading-article/9088931/winter-fuel/

Yes, no doubt, people die from a lack of resources to deal with cold weather. This is not a new problem. It is not a function of increased amounts of cold weather. Those people dying from cold weather is not a function of focus on an increase in deaths that might attributable to ACO2-influenced heat waves. The two phenomena are not intrinsically linked. So why do you advocate for a fallacious linkage?

If people choose to do so, they can walk and chew gum at the same time (focus on lack of resources to deal with cold even as they focus on policy development to address AGW).

In effect, what you are doing is exploiting “deaths from cold” to score points in the climate wars. Why would you suggest that Congresscritters follow suit?

==>”Since then, some 280,000 Brits have died from the cold and barely 10,000 from the heat. We have been focusing on the wrong enemy.”

I protest your motivated tribal etc. reasoning and lack of evidence and big boy pants, Ron. Bwaaaahhaaaa! It’s not fair to point out that ACO2 could up the average temps in winter and save lives by reducing the severity and numbers of extreme cold spells. ACO2 has no effect winter time temperatures.

==> ” It’s not fair to point out that ACO2 could up the average temps in winter and save lives by reducing the severity and numbers of extreme cold spells. ACO2 has no effect winter time temperatures.”

Lol! So now Don is arguing that ACO2 emissions have the potential to increase global average temperatures (and magically hit that sweet spote to differentially reduce deaths from cold more than increase deaths from heat) on a time scale that would be clearly discernible.

But, of course, he will immediately be descended upon by the vast legions of “skeptics” who will explain to him that there’s no such thing as global average temps, and even if there were, they couldn’t be measured.

Of course, they”ll also explain to Don that even though there’s no such thing as SATs, and even if there were they couldn’t be measured, in addition, the rise in the trend of those temps that don’t exist and can’t be measured has paused and thus any theories that say that continued warming will result from BAU have been invalidated anyway!

All I said was, we should plan for future periods both colder and warmer than the present. Up til now we have been fortunate.

“The chief benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths; lower energy costs; better agricultural yields; probably fewer droughts; maybe richer biodiversity. It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths — not just in countries like Britain but also those with very warm summers, including Greece. Both Britain and Greece see mortality rates rise by 18 per cent each winter. Especially cold winters cause a rise in heart failures far greater than the rise in deaths during heatwaves.”

Cold, not the heat, is the biggest killer. For the last decade, Brits have been dying from the cold at the average rate of 29,000 excess deaths each winter. Compare this to the heatwave ten years ago, which claimed 15,000 lives in France and just 2,000 in Britain. In the ten years since, there has been no summer death spike at all. Excess winter deaths hit the poor harder than the rich for the obvious reason: they cannot afford heating. And it is not just those at risk who benefit from moderate warming. Global warming has so far cut heating bills more than it has raised cooling bills. If it resumes after its current 17-year hiatus, and if the energy efficiency of our homes improves, then at some point the cost of cooling probably will exceed the cost of heating — probably from about 2035, Prof Tol estimates.

“Yes, no doubt, people die from a lack of resources to deal with cold weather. This is not a new problem.”

And lack of resources can be the result of a government’s greed for taxes, control and need to please its supporters. Propaganda helps also. Note also that schemes to raise the price of energy (variants of the Turnover Tax)exacerbate those people’s problems (see references here and elsewhere to excess mortality in the U.K.)https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=excess+deaths+in+UK+due+to+cold

==> “And lack of resources can be the result of a government’s greed for taxes, control and need to please its supporters.”

This is an excellent point. My guess is that very few people die from a lack of resources on small government countries like Somalia.

Just look around the world at those “big government” and “Socialist” countries and compare them the “small government” countries and clearly you can see that taxes, greed, control, and need to please supporters correlates with access to resources.

Joshua writes- “The notion that mitigation and adaptation are somehow mutually exclusive with each other is one that I’ve never agreed with.”

My perspective- You continue to play word games, but refuse to address a basic reality.
There are very limited funds in developed nations and current budget deficits and demographic changes are increasing the pressure to only spend on true necessities. In an environment of limited resources choices must be made regarding where to spend these limited resources.
Does it make sense to spend on a mitigation activity that is not known to have any positive benefit to those paying for it, or to spend those same resources on adaptation (better infrastructure) that will have known benefits. What is most likely to result in severe damage to the US economy in the next 30 years- poor economic management by government or damage from climate change? In one case we KNOW we will have vastly increasing costs, and in the other we have very little reliable information.
I suspect you will again dodge making a substantive reply.

In the linked article on the 97% consensus, Richard Tol says, “If you want to believe climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.” Can’t we say the same for all of the defenders of the study and those who parrot the results, knowing it takes a willing suspension of disbelief –e.g., defenders and parrots like the democrat party, the government bureaucracy, Leftist-thinking school teachers, Uncle Commie, etc.

It’s remarkable the religious beliefs people hold. I suppose that a person who believes in CAGW, who holds a belief that goes beyond what could be supported by the scientific facts and is to some extent attributable to a faith in CAGW, looks less ludicrous than a person whose belief is supported by no scientific facts, but the same process is in operation.

What about people who “believe” in climate “skepticism,” but don’t know the science, don’t have the skills to evaluate the science, and can’t accurately portray the prevalence of view among scientific “experts?

Joshua,
Assuming we care about the topic, we read.
We read papers we don’t fully understand, we read articles, we read interviews of scientists and get varying sides of the story, we read books and get the same, we read transcripts, we play with chart making toys, we take on line classes, we read blogs, we read politicians views (ugh) and we are firmly uncertain what to make of things. And live in amazement that others find so much certainty all while self evaluating if our own skepticism is just a naturally ingrained starting point. But I guess it’s better than ignoring it all together (but that’s a belief).

What about people who “believe” in climate “skepticism,” but don’t know the science, don’t have the skills to evaluate the science, and can’t accurately portray the prevalence of view among scientific “experts?

It certainly takes a rocket scientist to build a rocket. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to observe the rocket exploding and falling to the sea.

I, for one, am simply observing. It doesn’t take much to observe.

And then I use a little critical thinking skills grounded by my life experiences. I use a little deductive reasoning and watch out for fallacious logic by others. When the evidence seems weak, I give it the appropriate discount.

After all that then I just throw some common sense into the mixture knowing what I know about human nature, history, organizational dynamics, politics, social psychology and bull s..t.

Explain to me how so many scientists and organizations are so wrong about climate change? I don’t think the experts base their view on some “religious belief.” Also I think they usually base their opinions on the evidence that they see. So why should I not trust what they have to say?

Jaydigits, it’s the catastrophes, the excessive alarm that is the problem. Don’t worry, the big boys are not only beginning to comprehend their error, they are frantically looking for solid ground between them and forgiveness for their errors. They’re trying to get there without confession and penance, and that bodes ill for their journey.
====================

The problem is what they “see” is a lot less than what they are saying.

We have only seen .8C warming since 1880, but they “say” we should expect 3C per century.

The problem is we didn’t see 3C the first century (1880 – 1979), and even if you only look at 1950 onward (when most CO2 was emitted), you only see about 2C/century (and really it looks more like 1.5C/century, because sometimes the human and natural cancel and sometimes they add).

As I recall, a day or so after the Challenger disaster NPR interviewed at least one engineer who had stayed home launch-day, knowing it was going to explode. He described the catastrophe as a management failure to delay the launch – despite being warned that o-rings would burn through if launch temps were less than 28 degrees. It was 18 degrees.

Explain to me how so many scientists and organizations are so wrong about climate change? I don’t think the experts base their view on some “religious belief.” Also I think they usually base their opinions on the evidence that they see. So why should I not trust what they have to say?

I am not saying that one can only hold alarmist beliefs as a form of religious belief. Other incentives can be quite potent, such as research funding. And old-fashioned error plays a part. Nor am I saying that beliefs held religiously are necessarily false or untrustworthy. Nor am I saying that a belief that has elements of a religious belief cannot also be grounded to a great extent in science.

A religion does not necessarily involve a belief in God. Buddhists, for example, do not believe in God. To me, it starts looking religious when the facts cannot be argued because they are issues of faith, when the person considers ‘skepticism’ to be morally wrong and perhaps punishable, when the person thinks of global warming in terms of an apocalypse and he believes he is fighting for salvation, when the person believes he is saving the planet and this gives meaning to his life or provides his primary identity, when there is intolerance of dissent, when the person engages in Evangelization Here are some statements that have been made:

“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” Richard Feynman

“Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people—the best people, the most enlightened people—do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.” Michael Crichton

“I am a skeptic … Global warming has become a new religion… I participated in a panel discussion in the Nobel meeting in Lindau in 2008 where I said the global warming has become a new religion. Please see the statement from the American Physical Society where it is stated: The evidence is incontrovertible; i.e. it can’t be discussed, just like religion. The [society] will discuss the mass of a proton for example, or negative energy, but global warming is incontrovertible….” Ivar Giaever and here and here.

“Do you believe in global warming? That is a religious question. So is the second part: Are you a skeptic or a believer?” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, in a speech to about 100 people at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

“Essentially if whatever you are told is alleged to be supported by ‘all scientists,’ you don’t have to understand [the issue] anymore. You simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief,” Lindzen said. His speech was titled, “Climate Alarmism: The Misuse of ‘Science'” and was sponsored by the free market George C. Marshall Institute. Lindzen is a professor at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Once a person becomes a believer of global warming, “you never have to defend this belief except to claim that you are supported by all scientists – except for a handful of corrupted heretics,” Lindzen added.

According to Lindzen, climate “alarmists” have been trying to push the idea that there is scientific consensus on dire climate change. “With respect to science, the assumption behind the [alarmist] consensus is science is the source of authority and that authority increases with the number of scientists [who agree.] But science is not primarily a source of authority. It is a particularly effective approach of inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science – consensus is foreign,” Lindzen said. http://marshall.org/climate-change/meteorologist-likens-fear-of-global-warming-to-religious-belief/

“The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.” Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Here is one person’s discussion of religious elements found in alarmist beliefs.

I don’t say a scientific belief is more likely to be false simply because it is held in part for reasons that are identical to those found in a religious belief. I do say, however, that when listening to the person one must take into account that his fervor or sense of certainty is not based entirely on the scientific data, though he may be a scientist, and he cannot automatically be assumed to be entirely objective. So it’s not that one can’t trust the person. As the Russian proverb puts it, ‘Trust, but verify’.

The “Stupid Party” reference is a historical one. Dean Acheson, in his 1955 book A Democrat Looks at His Party, trotted out this thesis: that Republicans are the “stupid party,” not because Democrats are intelligent, but because stupid people tend to vote Republican. (I have a 1960-ish edition of William F. Buckley’s Up From Liberalism, and some of the review comments refer back to Acheson’s thesis.)

In the last few years, the phrase has been revived in conservative circles, among those who criticize the Republican party for being too weak and accommodating on various issues (especially immigration).

Layman question to Dr. Curry and other Climate Scientists here at CE: When Climate Scientists use the term “natural variability” what exactly does this mean? Simple example — El Ninos have been around for 10’s of thousands of years, so this would be a natural variability. But where does “intensity” fit in when the term “natural variability” is used?

It means whatever would have happened in the absence of humanity. So take out GHG’s emitted by humans, land use by humans, carbon black emitted by humans, cities, blacktop, air conditioning, airplane contrails, etc.

Of course, we have no idea of the magnitude of the effect of humanity on climate, which is why we have no idea of the absolute amount of natural variability.

So far, it appears to be running about .1 C/decade natural variability and .1 C/decade caused by humans. Sometimes they net out to zero (the pause), sometimes they add to .2 C/decade (or 2 C per century). But the error bars on this guesstimate are pretty large.

Overall, it nets out to about 1.5 C/century.

But this is what observations are telling us (the models are overestimating the human caused by .1 C/decade or more).

The null hypothesis is humans are having zero effect on climate, but soon the evidence should be enough to show that in fact humans are indeed having an effect on the climate of .1 C/decade or so (we shall see).

No statistical verification of that yet of course, as we need more data for much longer to nail it down. The signal is just so small.

Since 1950, a full AMDO cycle, it nets out to 0.1C/decade and that’s using two thirds of a century history. The AMDO is 60 years in length so any history incorporating less than 60 years is fundamentally not long enough to incorporate known cyclical changes.

I’m still trying to break-down pieces parts of the term “natural variability”. I’ll continue to use an El Nino as an example. During the modern climate record, we’ve had X number of El Ninos. Is there anything in the statistics of Climate History that El Ninos are either (A) increasing in frequency (number) or (B) increasing in intensity (i.e., 1998)? Or another way of saying this — any clear fingerprint of “something” happening on “natural variability”?Thanks.

The reason there is so much contention regarding “global warming” is relatively simple to understand: In climate change science we basically cannot prove anything about how the climate will change as a result of adding extra greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

In other words, it is the perfect liberal cause, everything can be blamed on climate change, and because humans apparently cause the climate to change in unacceptable ways, we are to blame. So, liberals get to tell everyone how to live, but get to exclude themselves from following their own onerous dictates.

Ted Cruz’ only mistake is saying the theory of global warming was modified. There is no theory of global warming. There are only tested and failed hypotheses of global warming and hypotheses yet to be tested.

The failed hypothesis of warming dominated by anthropogenic CO2 has been modified by various hypotheses such as dirty coal-burning in China putting negative feedback aerosols in the air, and, among others faster transfer of heat into the deep ocean.

He’s correct in all respects except for conflating theory with what’s clearly still hypothetical.

Stephen,
The author of that WaPo piece is Chris Mooney. He has made his career pushing the Republicans are anti-science story. He is a pure propagandist. I have no respect for him, he is the perfect example of a political operative masquerading as a journalist. From my point of view, he is either really smart and evil, or he is a pathetic follower who works really hard to be one of the most useful idiots.

That being said, I am no Cruz fan, he is the kind of candidate that I might likely vote against. I was a little surprised that his statement was at least a little bit thoughtful. Based on my knowledge of him, I would have half expected him to simply deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but he didn’t do that. His statement wasn’t perfect and was crafted for political effect, but not bad. And the things that were wrong with his statements should be pretty transparent to anyone who follows the issue.

My personal view is that there are a very few scientifically literate politicians and there are an overwhelming majority who are morons when it comes to science and technology. I don’t think there is a correlation to which party they belong to.

A perfect example of a Science dummy on the Republican side was my former representative Michele Bachmann. She was an embarrassment and as dumb as they come with respect to climate change.

But on the other side guys like Jerry Brown get a free pass. How about Gore with 23 ft of sea level rise and 100s of millions of climate refugees. What about John Kerry recently saying that the solutions to climate change are simple. Stephen, I know you are a guy who has a very good understanding of energy infrastructure and I think you understand what it means to reduce CO2 emissions in a meaningful way, would you describe it as simple???

When Chris Mooney takes on anyone on the left or takes a serious look at anyone making wild alarmist speculation, then maybe I will reconsider my opinion of him, but at this point, it couldn’t be any lower.

The web has a nice interview of Ted Cruz with the Texas Tribune. The curious can go look; for the uncurious, I’ll advise that he has a fine command of useful and effective talking points about ‘global warming’.
===============

Wait, wait. Were not ‘skeptics’ just complaining that everyone knows the term denier refers to holocaust denial and now Ted Cruz is claiming everyone knows it refers to religious heretics? It is tough to keep straight all of the victim cards ‘skeptics’ play.

Yes, but Dems are dominated by Lefties- and socialism has long track record of not working politically. Or for Left to control they need a government which totalitarian which definitional is “not working politically”.
One can say Castro remained in power a long time by maintaining a police state, but one can not even imagine it’s working politically.

So what has happened is that because the Dems are dominated by Lefties
the Republican are become more of the majority party, despite Republicans always doing something that does not work politically.
So what is critical for Republicans to understand is it’s not what republicans
are doing which is causing their success, but rather it’s due to the Dems
failure to be vaguely rational.
And anyway path forward for Republican is Tea party and more grassroot
type involvement, and focus of doing things at local level rather than at Federal level. By removing the Lefty support by giving more competition
at grassroots level, the Republican will make Dems more competitive, but
the nation needs more competition in politics, not less.

IMO it comes down to this simple question: DO you truly believe the increase of co2 of molecule out of every 10k molecules of air over a 100 year period is now the control knob of the climate over the sun, oceans, stochastic events and the very design of the system? If so why now, when we have had ice ages at far higher amounts and warmer times at lower amounts. If Dr Curry does not mind, I opined on all this in the post here.. the rise of the co2 fairy: http://patriotpost.us/opinion/33665

From Benny Peiser, CCNet, more proof the Democrats are dragging the chain, slow to learn, a bit retarded:

“Less than a third of Americans are now concerned about global warming and climate change: 32 percent fret about those environmental factors says the annual Gallup Environmental survey, released Wednesday. Naturally, there’s a partisan divide: 13 percent of Republicans are concerned about global warming and climate problems, compared to 52 percent of Democrats. –Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times, 25 March 2015”

The Gallup survey allows TWO categories that I would consider reflecting significant concern “a great deal” and “a fair amount”. I believe the numbers above just reflect those who choose “a great deal”. Using both of the above responses as a measure of concern the totals increase to 56% for the public, 38% for Republicans and 83% for Democrats.

I’ll agree that the concern percentages are trending down, but it still may be the case that the “concerned” population is becoming more strident, more vocal and unfortunately maybe even more impactful. People tell me that concern for global warming is going down, but personally I have not seen that breakthrough – I see more stridency, dismissiveness and certainty. As/(if?) counter evidence rises will we slow a slow erosion in support or will there be a huge tipping point. I’m staying tuned to see.

There are other similar reports. Bjorn Lomborg has been showing fore years that thew top economists from all over the world rate it as a low priority issue. So, I think the interest and concern among the general public (i.e. the voters) is declining.

Thanks for the link Peter. I will bookmark and use it. I appreciate and look for your comments. I think you are right in that more and more people are picking up that the emperor has no clothes but I don’t think they are comfortable articulating that or maybe even admitting it to themselves. Their withdrawel may be less noticed because others are doubling down on ridicule and name calling because they are panicked or have nothing else to hold down the fort. The second group frustrates me the most, but maybe I should be more focused on group one. Hopefully the first group will start to share their doubts and help drive more open enquiry.

Faux balance is cowardice, Judith. Comparing the nut-bag things Cruz has said the last few weeks to anything said by mainstream Democrats is just patently absurd, and you know it. Claiming that warming stopped around 1998 is just a flat-out lie, not a “competing interpretation of the data”.

Claiming that warming stopped around 1998 is just a flat-out lie, not a “competing interpretation of the data”.

If you look at page 92 of the APS Climate Change Statement Review Workshop you will see this statement by Dr. William Collins, head of the Climate Sciences Department, and director of the Center at LBNL for Integrative Modeling of the Earth System (CLIMES) at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory (LBNL), as well as lead author on the Fourth and Fifth Assessment of the IPCC:

“Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 18 of 20 years are vanishingly small.”

Are you saying that the statement of Dr. Collins is a “flat out lie” and is not a “competing interpretation of the data”?

Thanks for this. I find it amazing that with the proper assumptions a cherry picked period from 1979 to 1998 can be used to justify a dominant man-made GHG climate forcing. Again with proper assumptions both the warming period from 1979 to 1998 and the hiatus from 1998 to the present day can be attributed to natural forces. Man-made forces cannot be responsible for the hiatus, man-made aerosols are too weak. How does one conclude that man-made forces dominate climate changes? How does one call 1998-present cherry picked and 1979-1998 is not cherry picked? I’m surprised we still have a debate at all!

I completely agree with Brown. It is a very serious situation in California and it is going to become more serious with impacts on agriculture, power and fire conditions. Drought emergencies have also been declared in Oregon and Washington. These events are also happening in South America – where in Chile the government is building 12 desalination plants where the president has declared “. . . there is no choice but to assume that the lack of water resources is a reality that is here to stay and that puts at risk the development of important regions of our country”. The Republicans are acting dumb when a senator throws a snowball in Congress in order to make a point about ‘global warming’. Really global warming is just a statistic (however, sometimes I wonder if these politicians understand what a mean value is). It is as Brown said – it is a climate disruption that is the alarming thing, not that its warming. The climate has been disrupted both on the west coast where is it significantly warmer and it eastern US where it was persistently cold. And there has been a tremendous amount of anomalous heat in the Arctic regions. I see no point in arguing about it. And it is not about ‘belief’. When there is little snow after a rainy season in California (no snow pack) it means that the climate has changed. And Ted Cruz is an idiot when he compares himself to Galileo.

Actually if the water is diverted from the Delta there is increased salt water intrusion into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Brackish water starts to move upstream. This has impacts on agriculture in that area. Areas tapped by water suppliers are impacted. A sewage treatment plant had to hold its effluent since it is not allowed to discharge when the water flow is reversed from normal – http://www.sfestuary.org/salt-field/.

Bill G. Thank you for your comment. I had oversimplified. It could be an interesting engineering problem. Objectives:
Preserve Delta Smelt;
Feed people;
Satisfy thirst people;
Prevent reverse flow & probably more.
I wonder if the treatment of tidal bores in the Bay of Fundy could offer hints of a solution to backflow. I am not being sarcastic, just ignorant. 8-)

Climate disruptions are normal. They’ve always occurred and always will in the future. Our GHG emissions are just as likely to be minimizing or delaying the next cold disruption as causing a warm disruption. They are just as likely to be doing more good than harm overall.

Sadly, Peter, climate disruptions are normal, however awful. When I look out on my green, sappy country this autumn there is a certain amount of dread that it must one day revert to the brown fire trap of twenty years ago. Because that is what has to happen. That’s climate.

The present drought in SW USA is a really bad one, among the very worst. But so was the drought of the Texas region in the 1950s, the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and Australia at the turn of the 20th century. South America had its whopper in the late 1870s.

Conservation is needed. Wasting money and resources on “being green” will just take the needed money and resources away from conservation.

Actually what I understand is that the present epoch, the Holocene, is an unusually stable period where climate disruptions are not as prevalent. And, of course, the climate is a system with components. The greenhouse gas effect theory was first proposed by Fourier in 1824. According to the Wikipedia page on it, Alexander Graham Bell wrote in 1924 about the dangers of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere. The theory of climate change is simple – the gasses trap heat and re-radiate (long-wave) them to the surface. Since we are talking about an energy system, and heat is a proxy for energy, that increases the energy in the system. Weather (and, hence, winds) is driven by temperature. If the ice is melting in the Arctic (and it is – we are again at minimum extent) then it means that ambient heat is increasing. The change in heat in the Arctic has been theorized to change the weather patterns and the greater amount of energy in the system increases the effect. None of the theories applied are new or controversial – I guess from those that disagree with climate science is in judging the exponential impact of increased greenhouse gas accumulations. But the persistent ridging of the jet stream and the way it is extending way up into the Bering Straight indicate disorder.

Actually what I understand is that the present epoch, the Holocene, is an unusually stable period where climate disruptions are not as prevalent.

What you think you understand is a belief based on motivated reasoning.

Where is the evidence to support your belief that the Holocene to date was any more or less stable than warm periods of equivalent length in the past – e.g. the Miocene, Pliocene, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous. etc.? Your evidence needs to be of global average temperatures with the same accuracy and time spacing as the evidence over the Holocene.

Where is your evidence that the “the persistent ridging of the jet stream and the way it is extending way up into the Bering Straight indicate disorder” is unusual? How do you know it hasn’t happened in the past.

The only serious negative is energy costs. That’s solvable too. Dump the silly beliefe in renewable energy and adopt rational policy analysis – go nuclear and allow it to be cheaper than fossil fuels, then energy costs will be cheaper and net beneficial too.

Actually Peter, my ability to persuade you is absolutely nil. I am not trying to persuade you. The situation that I am worried about is the drought in California. If there is no water it really is irrelevant if CO2 concentrations would have an impact one way or another. The question I have is how does climate disruption create the current conditions we are seeing in the jet stream and hence in seasonal weather. The original intent comes from the statements above from Cruz and Brown. Since Brown is the governor of California and since he is following the theories brought forth that greenhouse gas concentrations are indeed creating a change in equilibrium in climate systems, he is critical of Cruz. The previous Republican governor Schwarzenegger was also active in legislation around climate change. Is this new pattern part of natural variability, or has a point of equilibrium been undermined and, hence, are we going to come to a new point of equilibrium in which California will no longer get the necessary rains for the society we have today. That seems to be the conclusion of the government of Chile which I cited earlier. Cheers!

Well, the Democrats ( smart party?) run California – they hold all but one elected office and have a supermajority in the legislature – and our gasoline prices are sky high. I paid $3.29/gal the other day, and here is why:

The underlying problem is believing the future can only be warmer than the present. Once you accept the notion that CO2 makes the earth’s surface warmer, then temperatures can only go higher since CO2 keeps rising. The present plateau in temperatures is inconvenient, but actual cooling would directly contradict the CO2 doctrine. Some excuses can be fabricated for a time, but an extended period of cooling undermines the whole global warming mantra.

It’s not a matter of fearing a new ice age. That will come eventually, according to our planet’s history, but the warning will come from increasing ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere. Presently US infrastructure is not ready to meet a return of 1950s weather, let alone something unprecedented. Public policy must include preparations for cooling since that is the greater hazard. Cold harms the biosphere: plants, animals and humans. And it is expensive and energy intensive to protect life from the ravages of cold. Society can not afford to be in denial about the prospect of the plateau ending with cooling.

My mantra several years ago was that if we are false-footed into mitigating a warming that isn’t happening instead of adapting to a cooling that is happening, there’ll be Hell to pay, and the warrant servers will be mounted on vari-colored steeds.
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